After Lockdown and cancellations, INK is returning to Colonnade House for its fifth exhibition this September. Taking place in the main gallery, the exhibition celebrates our love of printmaking with twelve local artists who use a variety of printing methods including; Monotype, Lino Cut, Screen Printing, Eco Printing and more.
Sussex Printmakers is a group of artists who love printmaking and want to use ink, paper or press to create their work. INK is an annual exhibition with much love from the Worthing community. We are delighted to share joy with this medium, showcase artists’ work and spread the name of printmaking. Sussex Printmakers is run by Peon Boyle alongside Old Cartshed Studio. To find out more please follow us on Instagram @sussexprintmakers.
Featuring; Anna Vartiainen, Vicky Gomez, Melissa Birch, Rosemary Jones, Martha Harris, Hattie Lockhart – Smith, Nicola Brewerton, Nora Young, Sarah Sepe, Peon Boyle, Sue Hawksworth & Barbara Byars.
Anna Vartiainen
A Finn born in France, Anna Vartiainen has lived in the UK almost all her life. Heavily influenced by spending her childhood summers in the Finnish forest, her inspiration remains rooted in nature. She loves the magic of spooky trees, as well as the simple joy found in wildflowers, appreciating the details in what we can find around us.
Anna creates designs for screen-printing from drawings and paintings, enjoying the transformation of loose brush marks into flat layers.
Her linocuts are in a more simple, graphic style, and etching is her newest exploration in printmaking, where she can further use her drawing skills to create mysterious, moody scenes.
Largely self-taught as an artist, Anna studied the History of Art, Architecture and Design at Kingston University. She owns a shop called FOUND shop & studio, specialising in print and illustration, showing her work at exhibitions and print fairs.
Vicky Gomez
Vicky Gomez is a Spanish artist, now based in Hove. She has spent her whole career in visual arts, graphic and 3D design, but has recently rediscovered her passion for the art of printmaking.
Her linocut prints often combine media (such as watercolours, metallic inks, or gold leaf) and are often inspired by the sea and ocean, from mythical creatures to the coral reef full of life and colour.
Apart from relief printmaking she also enjoyed experimenting with screen printing on fabric. https://www.vickygomez.co.uk
Melissa Birch
Melissa Birch is an artist and printmaker who studied at the Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford (BA) and Chelsea College of Art (MA).
Her love of lino printing is grounded in a passion for simplicity of form and line. She produces hand-made prints in small, numbered editions using Japanese papers and oil based inks.
Living in Sussex fuels the recurring subject matter of plants and floral structures in her work. She draws inspiration from the local countryside, as well as the untidy flowerbeds of her own garden.
Melissa also runs workshops in lino-printing and loves to show others how to develop their own enjoyment of this craft.
Find out more at melissabirch.co.uk
Rosemary Jones
Rosemary is an artist specialising in linocut printmaking, and most of her images are of local landmarks in Worthing and the landscape of the South Downs.
Rosemary came to art as a mature student, following adult education courses at Northbrook College, where she learned about linocutting and was also inspired by artists such as Eric Ravilious and his linocutting friend Edward Bawden, amongst others.
She loves the sea, the sky and landscape of the South Downs, having lived in Worthing for over thirty years, and it has been a natural focus of her work.
All her prints are original handmade linocuts, made with real ink, on real paper, on a real press, by her. Each print is unique because it is entirely made by hand.
She also enjoys fabric printing with linocut blocks, making lampshades in unique designs.
Martha Harris
Martha adopts an eclectic approach to creative practice. Her skills were honed from studies in Fashion Design at UCA Epsom and a B.A. Hons in Fine Art: Sculpture at Camberwell College of Arts. She subsequently undertook an M.A. in Computing in Art and Design from Middlesex University.
Martha’s work is a combination of textile exploration, fine art concepts and graphic image making. She fuses analogue and digital processes in her printmaking practice, focusing on freestyle stitch drawing for details and mark making techniques.
Hattie Lockhart-Smith
During lockdown, Hattie Lockhart Smith has taken the opportunity to analyse all aspects of her practice, this is still ongoing and she is now working in a totally new style of printing for her.
Hattie is currently focused on creating multi layered monoprints using made plates, found objects and trace printing to create her work. Printing in this way also allows Hattie to sand back the work to reveal earlier layers creating interesting textures and ‘happy accidents’.
Currently, Hattie is concentrating on the process, starting each print without a vision for the end product, she has found this a much freer way of working and is enjoying what she is learning with every print.
Nicola Brewerton
BA (Hons) Fine Art
Nicola starts by gathering small amounts of wild plants and materials and by taking photographs often from usual angles. She distils and ferments to make dyes and inks for paper and fabric. She creates images using eco-printing, silk screen printing and drawing from objects and photographs. She works alongside nature, trying to pass within it and letting it make its own marks.
Her work celebrates the tiny uniqueness of each plant and the small joy it gives us. It is often a glimpse of what we might not notice. She is interested in exploring natural cycles, seasonal growth and dying back, the constant renewal and energy of plants. This work is based on material gathered during one year at Clayton Wood Natural Burial Ground in the South Downs National Park where Nicola’s mother – who also loved plants – is buried.
Nora Young
ARTIST IN A VARIETY OF MEDIA
MEMBER OF BN14 ART STUDIOS
For INK 2021 images are a variety of lino-cuts.
These images continue the work on the theme of ‘Frazzles’.
Frazzles are the repeated internal circular thoughts that arise from anxieties, worries and times of stress. These are natural human thought processes, but can be hard work!
During the Pandemic works have reflected these ‘frazzles’, befriending them, accepting they are a natural part of life as experiences are processed.
’Structure the unsaid as freely and as you structure the said things…. Deliberately create spaces for the person to inhabit.’
‘…. One person saying to another this is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it feel this way to you?’
Kazuo Ishiguro. From his Nobel Prize for Literature speech, 2017.
Instagram: Nora.Young
Email: nora.young@ntlworld.com
Sarah Sepe
Sarah is an artist who works from her studio at the West End Gallery in Worthing where her work can be seen throughout the year.
Much of her recent work has been inspired by walks along the beach- in situ drawings influence marks cut into the lino which are then printed onto paper using water-based inks. Sometimes the marks are literal forms: stones, plants, the wind farm on the horizon, sometimes they evoke shifting shapes on the sand and movement in the sea. On occasions the print remains a simple one colour lino print (see ‘New Horizon’), often Sarah adds layers of colours and forms both printed and collaged onto the papers until the work is complete.
These works capture the essence of colours, shapes, moods of the ever changing but always the same beach.
Peon Boyle
Peon Boyle is the co-founder of Old Cartshed Studio- printmaking and pottery
She is fascinated by marks that are made from real objects, especially nature and plants. Peon’s recent series of prints “Silent” and “Grassland song” are new sets of monotype prints, depicting woodland and chalky grassland. The expressive roller marks give an impression of the trees and plants growing from the ethereal landscape. The emphasis of this series is about conveying the mood and atmosphere of how she feels within these environment.
Sue Hawksworth
Sue has long been inspired by the effect of man and nature on the landscape. Light and shadow play an important part in her work enabling the pattern and form of the landscape to be revealed. Sue has explored these themes in a range of media including monotype, paper lithography and collograph. Sue enjoys working with different materials and processes, and the flexibility of mixing media enables her to explore more abstract forms. Sue also paints in oil, acrylic, watercolour and pastel.
Recent work has been based on sketches made in Pembrokeshire and Sussex.
Over the past year Sue has rekindled her interest in stitched textiles, and intends to use these techniques to inform her future practice.
Contact: mail@suehawksworth.com Website: www.suehawksworth.com
Barbara Byars
Barbara Byars was born in Africa, 500 miles from the sea, she grew up in the Fens, 50 miles from the sea and now lives in East Preston. Clearly she was drawn to the sea, this is reflected on her work. She continues to be surprised by the subtle changes in light, particularly in the interface between horizon and sky.
For many years Barbara was an Art teacher, now she focuses on her own work.
For this exhibition Barbara shows prints covering some of her interests,
From saxophones to floribunda, and yes – the sea.
She enjoys working with a variety of materials and using mixed media to create more abstract forms.
Tuesday 14th September – Friday 1st October // 10.00 – 17.00