Monica Poole
This is Monica Poole's 'Piddock Architecture' wood engraving from 1975, one of the prints that feature in A Printmaker's Journey, the exhibition I've curated for Hampshire Cultural Trust which reopened at its final venue in Lymington last week.
When I began wood engraving again in earnest a few years after leaving college, the clarity and attention to detail in Monica Poole’s depiction of natural forms was a huge inspiration. I never looked at a piece of seaweed or pebble in the same way again and discovered the fascination of studying nature in close detail.
A Printmaker's Journey features over 60 works from over 20 artists including Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Jonny Hannah, Gertrude Hermes, Mark Hearld, Enid Marx, Paul Morrison, Eric Ravilious, Rob Ryan, Graham Sutherland and Emily Sutton.
Until 25th November 2017 at St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington, Hampshire SO41 9BH Find out more
Image courtesy of Folkestone Art Trust
Monica Poole
This is Monica Poole's 'Piddock Architecture' wood engraving from 1975, one of the prints that feature in A Printmaker's Journey, the exhibition I've curated for Hampshire Cultural Trust which reopened at its final venue in Lymington last week.
When I began wood engraving again in earnest a few years after leaving college, the clarity and attention to detail in Monica Poole’s depiction of natural forms was a huge inspiration. I never looked at a piece of seaweed or pebble in the same way again and discovered the fascination of studying nature in close detail.
A Printmaker's Journey features over 60 works from over 20 artists including Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Jonny Hannah, Gertrude Hermes, Mark Hearld, Enid Marx, Paul Morrison, Eric Ravilious, Rob Ryan, Graham Sutherland and Emily Sutton.
Until 25th November at St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lyminton, Hampshire SO41 9BH Find out more
Image courtesy of Folkestone Art Trust
St Jude’s In The City
We're back in London, at Fournier Street in the heart of Spitalfields, for an event co-curated with The Town House proprietor Fiona Atkins.
The event, part of Shoreditch Design Triangle, sees the launch of the first in a series of wallpapers by Edward Bawden, forming part of our St Jude's Studio Archive range.
Painter-printmaker Mark Hearld launches a new fabric, Bantam Bough, celebrating his tenth anniversary of collaboration with St Jude's. His award winning Harvest Hare wallpaper and fabric also has a new colourway, Provençal Blue, showcased, together with his recent Cirque d'Hiver fabric.
Alongside a selection of our fabrics and wallpapers, we're exhibiting limited edition prints by St Jude's co-founder Angie Lewin, Edward Bawden and Christopher Brown.
From Wednesday 20th September until Sunday 24th September 2017 at The Town House, 5 Fournier Street, E1 6QE Find out more
Opening times:
Wednesday 20th September 11am-6pm
Thursday 21st September 11am-8pm
Friday 22nd September 11am-6pm
Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th September 11am-5pm
Edward Bawden's 1927 Seaweed wallpaper, reissued by St Jude's in September
Mark Hearld's Harvest Hare wallpaper in Provençal Blue
Angie Lewin's Nature Study, Late Summer screen print
Working on Mark Hearld's forthcoming Bantam Bough fabric for St Jude's
Christopher Brown's Albion linocut, the starting point for his first wallpaper for St Jude's
A Printmaker’s Journey
I'm delighted to share news of a forthcoming exhibition that I have curated for Hampshire Cultural Trust, A Printmaker's Journey, which opens in Winchester on Saturday 11th March and then tours Hampshire until early November 2017.
A Printmaker's Journey includes work selected from a wide range of disciplines and periods which will lead the visitor through the inspirations and affinities which have influenced my journey as a printmaker and designer. Paintings, textiles, prints, posters and ceramics by artists and designers including Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, Mark Hearld, Alan Reynolds, Emily Sutton and Paul Morrison will be displayed alongside work from various stages of my career.
I'll be at The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre on and off throughout the opening day, Saturday 11th March. I hope that you might be able to visit. Find out more
For those of you further afield, over the next few months I'll share details of some of the works selected and their significance to me. Keep an eye on my Instagram and Facebook pages for updates.
A Printmaker's Journey runs from 11 March – 30 April 2017 at The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre then tours until early November 2017. Find out more
Angie Lewin 'Sollas Sands' linocut, 2015
Edward Bawden 'The Road to Thaxted' linocut, 1956
Lizzie Farey 'Almost Spring' woven willow, 2017
(photograph by Shannon Tofts)
Eric Ravilious King Edward VIII Coronation Mug, 1937 (originally designed in 1936)
Angie Lewin 'Festival Mug' lithograph
Emily Sutton 'Olive Cook's Settle' watercolour, 2013
Edward Bawden 'Church and Dove' wallpaper, 1925
Camera Ready 1983
Matthew Rich, Master Printer at Jealous has just created Camera Ready 1983, a new nine colour screen print which painstakingly recreates a piece of rediscovered artwork from Matthew's time printing fly posters in Manchester for Factory Records and their Haçienda club. Matthew explains...
"I started screen printing in the early nineteen eighties at a Manchester print shop called Community Expression. I printed posters, stickers and t-shirts for local bands and clubs, political groups and the students' union. Our first premises was in a university building on Oxford Road and then I can remember 3 or 4 more places before we moved to a bigger shop called Lola Publicity on Claremont Road in Moss Side.
I joined forces with the Manchester fly posting crew so as well as being poster printers for the Manchester music scene, we would pick up record company posters sent from London to the Piccadilly station Red Star depot. We would (not entirely legally) paste them all over town, sometimes travelling as far afield as Sheffield and Leeds. Continues below...
We had a good relationship with local promoter Alan Wise, making posters for his acts the Fall, The Blue Orchids and Nico for the brief time she lived and worked in Manchester. But most of our work came from Factory Records, firstly making fly posters for the original Factory club (AKA the Russell or PSV Club) in Hulme and then, from 1982 onwards, gig posters for the brand new Fac 51, The Haçienda.
Arriving at the club with a roll of freshly screen printed posters guaranteed free entry, strolling smugly past the queues and some cash in hand to spend at the bar. There were many memorable nights like Einsturzende Neubauten attacking the pillars holding up the roof with a jack hammer, Madonna's first ever show in the UK and William Burroughs on stage reading from his new book, 'The Place of Dead Roads'. Continues below...
Back in the printshop we set out the poster artwork with Letraset, Rubylith and Rotring pens. Shot negatives onto Lith film using a huge horizontal process camera - all brass hinges and ground glass screens - and hand printed onto MG poster paper with very smelly old solvent based inks. No health and safety back in the eighties!
Many many years later I found this bit of poster artwork in a box in the attic. So many people of a certain age remember that era of the Manchester music scene with such fondness and a few suggested I do something with my bits and pieces of memorabilia. Continues below...
I scanned the ancient artwork and dissected it layer by layer. The ageing off-white card of the artwork sheet. The palest blue lines (invisible to the camera) of the layout grid, some scribbled notes in pencil, a bit of Tippex covering a mistake and the matt black of the Letraset itself. We definitely ran out of letter Ys but that's fine, make a negative and print off as many new ones as you need.
There's a story here of my journey in screen printing from knocking out one colour posters on the cheapest stock to this nine colour, limited edition print in expensive Swiss water based inks on 100% cotton mould-made Somerset paper."
Find out more about Camera Ready 1983 over at Jealous Prints.
Rena Gardiner at MMU
Manchester Metropolitan University's Special Collections are currently hosting an exhibition dedicated to the work of Rena Gardiner.
Rena Gardiner (1929-1999) spent her life entirely devoted to her art, creating books, prints and paintings. She is best known for a series of guidebooks to historic places, buildings and the countryside, each of which she wrote, printed and illustrated herself. This exhibition will include some of these guidebooks alongside paintings, pastels, linocuts and sketch-books and a display of work by some of the artists who influenced Rena including Eric Ravilious, John Piper and Edward Bawden.
The exhibition is based upon the book Rena Gardiner: Artist and Printmaker by Julian Francis and Martin Andrew, published by Little Toller Books in association with the Dovecote Press, 2015.
Rena Gardiner: Artist and Printmaker at MMU Special Collections runs until 18th November 2016. Visit their website for full details
Michael Kirkman
'Time Was Away', an exhibition by painter and printmaker Michael Kirkman, opened in Inverness last week and continues until 29th October 2016. The exhibition features a body of new paintings, drawings and limited edition prints. Michael explains...
"The work is an ongoing exploration into how the figure in art can suggest and communicate thoughts we all have. They can appear dreamlike at times, but I strive for the old meaning of surreal rather that the confusing and often over stylised interpretation that became fashionable in the post war years. I always work from memory, so often the images come from a real moment. I try to illustrate and make that feeling or sense of time and place available to look at in my pictures. I am very interested in the new Glasgow boys and in particular, the work of Steven Campbell, and also the general tradition of figurative work in Scotland with greats including Robin Philipson, the two Roberts, John Bellany and Joan Eardley.”
Having studied at Edinburgh College of Art, Michael Kirkman graduated from an MA course at the Royal College of Art, London in 2010. His inspiration comes from a need to communicate moments in time that seem strange or extraordinary, to capture what goes unnoticed. Some important influences include Eduardo Paolozzi, Mimmo Paladino, Balthus, Edward Burra and Jonathan Gibbs.
'Time Was Away' continues at The Castle Gallery, 43 Castle Street, Inverness IV2 3DU until 29th October 2016. View the online catalogue
We have a selection of Michael Kirkman's limited edition prints available over at our online gallery and Michael will join us in London from 23rd November until 4th December 2016 for our latest St Jude's In The City exhibition at The Bankside Gallery.
Michael Kirkman 'Icarus's Wing' oil on board (48cm x 60cm)
Michael Kirkman 'Rest from the Sea' pencil drawing (57cm x 69cm)
Michael Kirkman 'On The Wrong Way' oil on board (48cm x 49.5cm)
Michael Kirkman 'Weekday' linocut (41cm x 50cm)
Michael Kirkman 'Propeller Boy' pencil and oil pastel (40cm x 30cm)
Michael Kirkman 'Pablo's Cat' oil on board (48cm x 64cm)
