The Silent Spectators

The Silent Spectators belongs to a recurring strand in Ando's iconography in which animal figures — owls, hares, foxes, fish, butterflies — gather as mute witnesses around a central human or domestic scene. The etching is built up from fine drypoint and aquatint passages typical of her intaglio practice, with chine collé inserts providing localised colour and texture beneath the printed line. After pressing, the sheet is hand coloured, allowing each impression to vary slightly in tone. The title's invocation of silent watchers reflects the lightly threatening register critics have associated with her 'sinister storybook' world: the spectators do not intervene, and what they observe is left to the viewer to construct. Produced in 2013, the print sits in a period when Ando was consolidating the visual vocabulary of solitary girls in elaborate Edwardian dress, anthropomorphic creatures, and shallow stage-like interiors that would carry through her later editions, drawing equally on European surrealism and nineteenth-century print traditions.