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Re: Can anyone help with this art?
Posted By: Bill H
Posted Date: Jan 19, 2010 (12:06 AM)
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Hello Linda,

As read from the top right downward, the first three Chinese simplified characters within the square border have a pinyin transcription of "Mai Ke Di" (�����)*. The fourth character is Yin, which means "printed by."

Mai is a common surname with a basic meaning of "wheat." Ke and Di, respectively, have meanings of "overcome" and "progress." Obviously the latter two characters aren't entirely suited for each other in a personal name. Add to this the fact that all of these characters are used to transliterate foreign names into Chinese, and there's a strong suggestion that "Mai Ke Di" is a made-up name. In fact, transliterated names were all I found when I ran the characters through a Google search.

There's a humorous aspect to the name as well. "Mai Ke Di" is a homonym for "Can't be any good". Sometimes art is its own worst critic it seems!

I'd guess this to be the pseudonym of a contemporary printmaking artist.

Best regards,

Bill H.

*P.S. If the Chinese characters in the parentheses can't be seen, don't worry. It was only a test to see if I could get them to work.

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