Ouida Touchon

Delta, Colorado based artist Ouida Touchon combines traditional forms of printmaking and mixed media, with painting, collage, and embroidery to synthesize a medium all her own. More than a printmaker or painter, she sees herself more essentially as a maker of images. Her vibrant reduction woodcuts of women's garments (embellished with text) capture the souls of their inhabitants, oftentimes based on real women who lived and made legend in the frontier days. In this way, she pays homage to the feminine characters that too frequently go unwritten in popular tales of the Wild West. "My art making is complicated with feuding passions. One limb is socially conscious narratives about bad-ass women, either mythical or American west. The other limb fights for the scintillation of the observed; the beauty I see and interpret in a graphic response. More than a printmaker, or painter, I serve as an image maker, and I hope each time, for something remarkable. I enjoy working in the studio at my press or easel, as well as teaching printmaking at colleges and community workshops."