Introduction
Practising as an Architect for many years, I recently graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art.
My Printmaking work is influenced by Abstract Expressionists, German Expressionists and Japanese wood cuts but all in a magnified scale. I am interested in process, construction and the built environment and use huge sheets of flooring linoleum as my printing plates. Materials readily found in buildings are dripped, scraped, painted, taped and stamped as gestural marks to resist the acid which later etches the plates.
The process of etching obscures some marks, with glimpses emerging ghost like from behind others, giving an illusion of depth and space which resonates with my architectural involvement.
These prints resemble wood cuts, yet the magnified scale and shape of the marks would be impossible to achieve in wood. The use of Japanese paper which is more suited to traditional controlled and precise delicate wood cuts seems to be at odds with these bold prints and modern utilitarian construction materials used to make the plates. Thus there is an intentional incongruity of the materials used and a desire to interrogate traditional printmaking processes, yielding a contemporary art practice drawing on ideas of scale, process, construction and the everyday.