Throne

 

Buckingham Palace is beautiful, golden, sparkling, opulent, baroque, rich. If it were a dish it would be molten duck egg yolks, velvety on the tongue… However, I was thinking how even though it’s filled with life-like marble statues, their ghostly pallor and illusion of softness might make one yearn for the reality of a living, breathing, messy, optimistic dog.

So I made this print, which is of my friend’s ornate chair in her living room, one that kind of resembles a throne, and her happy dog, Lily. It was a lovely experience to sit in such a grand chair, and have Lily leaning on my legs. In way she was half mascot, and half protector, fully present.

I sent one of these prints to The Queen to thank her for inviting me over. I hope she didn’t think I was being blasphemous…

 

From the heart

Around November 2014 I started to make this series of works about bodies

dancing

intertwined

tumbling, blurring, merging

colliding

diagonal lines signifying cuts in time

faces hidden in the forest.

My works are often stories told from the heart; I think the colour makes them more emotional. In the above prints I used colour blends and irregular shifts of the paper to make playful variations: each one is totally unique. They are screen prints 112 x 76 cm large, so each was the absolute limit of my arm span.

The studio is shut at the moment, so this is a strange time: thinking rather than making, reflecting rather than doing, planning over running. It’s probably good for me!!!

 

 

Back to colour

Colour pencil drawings have helped me to make colour prints again. I was keen to make new prints for a show in Southwark that opened this week, so, telling myself there was nothing to lose, I threw myself wholeheartedly into the process, like a (very) rusty jazz musician.

Layering colour is a bit like playing a visual version of jenga. At first you feel like you could put any colour, anywhere, but after a while the game gets dangerous, one layer too many and the whole thing comes crashing down… Some of these prints were just nasty, but it was interesting to see what the subconscious mind would produce so I kept on making… And some of the prints are completely unexpected and surprising and make me smile.

Mid hang chaos

It’s been an interesting journey making work with no idea of what the end outcome will be. My carving is generally about concept, narrative and structure, so bringing in colour makes the prints more about emotion. I’ve enjoyed the freedom of making monoprints, and throwing together all the colours in my box of inks. (Now thinking it could be good to get in some more blues and greens…)

For those who live in London, the show is up til the end of Sunday 6th Feb, at Café Gallery, Southwark Park, London, from 11-4.

 

Swallow Span

“Swallow Span” is a long narrative book made of 20 linocut monoprints arranged as a concertina, within a book cover that measures 180 cm when fully open. To turn the pages the viewer has to use the full sweep of their arm span, echoing the title of the book.

The story is about a girl’s dream. From her sleeping figure spills a strange nighttime sequence, where birds inhabit indoor spaces, and shadowy figures float and meet each other in a dark garden. The perspective lurches and tilts matching a bird’s swooping gaze. The imagery and storyline in the book becomes folded into pages, and we realise that it is a book within a book, with the creative process including ink, notes and sketches depicted at the end.