Mariko Ando

Surprise Mail

2009

Mariko Ando was born and raised in Osaka and Nara Japan. In 1999 the artist moved to Vancouver, Canada. Ando has over 25 years experience as a freelance illustrator, and has been a member of Malaspina Printmakers Society/Studio (Granville Is. Vancouver, B.C.) since 2002. The artist has also worked as an art director and sketch artist for film, and television. “I love pen and ink drawings. Intaglio printmaking is very similar, but you’re able to create many more interesting details that you couldn’t draw by pen. I’ve always been attracted to the more “raw” feel of prints created by traditional techniques. There’s a conversation between beautiful paper and the ink and the etched plate." Mariko’s Prints have a storybook character about them. Animals take on the personalities of humans; there is sometimes an Alice in Wonderland distortion of scale, and inanimate objects have traits of living creatures. As we all know from our experience with childhood fairytales, storybooks can be rife with monsters, malevolent tricksters, or jealous stepsisters that threaten the well being of the innocent. There seems to be such a story behind many of Mariko’s finely wrought images.