Calla in Blue 3

Calla in Blue 3 is the third print in Tokitoh's blue-toned calla subset, continuing the artist's investigation of a single flower realized through translucent layered silkscreen. The bloom is presented by itself on an unornamented ground, the spathe opening to reveal the inner cavity and the spadix held within. Each color in the print is drawn directly onto the silkscreen by the artist, and the sheet is built up through approximately ten passes of the squeegee, producing the soft, watercolour-like depth that distinguishes her surface from a flatter, photographically derived stencil print. In Calla in Blue 3 the blue trends slightly cooler and the edges of the spathe dissolve more readily into the ground, giving the form a quiet, suspended quality. The print belongs to the larger body of single-motif flower studies that the artist has worked on almost exclusively in her mature practice, and to the smaller blue-toned subset that runs in parallel with the numbered grey calla prints.