Haydeé Landing Gordon, Untitled, 1991, colour woodcut; recipient of the Grand Prix, 18th International Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, 1989.
When she received an award at the 18th International Biennial of Graphic Arts, Haydeé Landing Gordon was already one of the leading representatives of Puerto Rican graphic arts. She wonderfully complements her masterful adeptness in the printmaking medium with an existentially coloured topic. Her figurative colour linocuts in large formats on sensitive materials are often socially engaged and talk about the delicate social environment of Puerto Rico at the end of the 1980s. Her epic compositions are a reflection of her nation, which she believes has been bought by the Americans with illusions of a better life. By focusing on the identifying conflict between the colonised (Puerto Rico) and the colonisers (US), with whom the first struggle in order to preserve their autonomous culture, she herself joined the resistance against colonialism.