Contemporary Hispanic Market Poster Artist Ana Marie Samaniego

Even though AnaMaria Samaniego’s absolutely stunning plein-air prints exude the great outdoors, the 2017 Contemporary Hispanic Market poster artist admits that her work is created entirely indoors. The printmaker says this is dictated more by practical necessity and than by choice.

She explains that the sun and elements on-site quickly dry out the art materials needed to create prints, which slowly and richly develop through a detailed process that includes drawing from photographs, applying layers of oils and etching in the controlled environment of a studio. But Samaniego actually spends a great deal of time up close and personal, absorbing each and every scene she depicts, paying particular attention to how light changes the terrain with the sun’s movement.

“I need to know the lay of the land so that I can get that feel in the final piece,” the 56-year-old Samaniego says. “People tell me that they look at my art and feel like they are actually there.”

Samaniego was born in Mesquite, New Mexico, and has lived in Santa Fe since 1980, when she enrolled in the College of Santa Fe. She says she mostly uses paper towels, clipped cotton swabs, and rollers to take layer upon layer of oil-based ink away in her extensive printmaking process.

The artist, who also teaches art at Northern New Mexico Community College in Española and-Western New Mexico University in Silver City, says that she drew inspiration for this year’s poster, Amalia, from the work of the late French painter Edgar Degas, considered one of the founders of impressionism in the 1800s.

Learn more about the printmaker at facebook.com/artistasamaniego or schedule an appointment to see her work at artistasamaniego@aol.com.