Warm Kitty

An intimate domestic study of a cat, this aquatint exemplifies Aida's facility with the medium's soft tonal range. The aquatint process — in which a rosin dust ground is melted onto a copper plate and selectively bitten with acid — produces the velvety mid-tones suited to rendering fur and the diffused warmth of a resting animal. Aida typically builds her plates through multiple bite stages, layering deeper darks against burnished highlights to suggest the volume of a curled body. While Aida is most closely associated with aquatic subjects drawn from her childhood near the Jindai-ji water shrine, smaller domestic compositions like this one form a counterpoint within her oeuvre — quieter studies that share the meditative attention to surface and light found in her larger landscape and rain prints. The work reflects the sensibility she developed across postgraduate training at Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku and the Royal College of Art in London.