Prizewinners

https://zuleikagallery.com/impressionsincolour/

Ian Davenport
b.1966
4am, 2019
Etching
Paper 62.0 x 62.0 cm / Paper 50.0 x 50.0 cm

Thursday, 7th April 2022, 19:00 to 21:00 | £5.45 (including booking fee)

Exhibition will run from 30th April 2022-21st May 2022  For more info and submission go here

I am writing to you today from Melbourne Australia, and I would like to begin by acknowledging the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations who are the traditional custodians of this land from which I am writing.

I want to express my thanks to Robin Footitt, Visual Arts Coordinator at ROSL Arts for his generous and enthusiastic support of this exhibition. Robin has made the experience of mounting an international exhibition seamless and exciting, which I consider nothing short of miraculous at this incredibly difficult time globally. I am grateful to the The Royal Over-Seas League for championing a spirit of international friendship and understanding between artists from the UK and Australia, and for their substantial investment in making it possible for us to create conversations across the hemispheres.

The Printmakers Council, UK, has similarly been an extraordinary source of goodwill and support. Jacki Baxter has brought a boundless energy to the project, embracing the opportunity to collaborate with Australian artists without hesitation, and opening every possible door to make the exhibition a reality. Jacki and I conceived this project as we worked side-by-side at an etching press in East London a number of years ago, and I have valued her steady and tireless commitment to the project ever since. Also from the printmaker’s council Venessa Pugh brought her thoughtful perspectives to the shaping of the project, whilst Bronwen Paterson and Theresa Pateman have been outstanding in their oversight of many exhibition and promotion logistics.

Ecologies of Change invites artists in the UK and Australia to visualise the afterlives of the Anthropocene. This year, many expect that the International Commission on Stratigraphy could formally define a new slice of the geologic record—the Anthropocene—to mark the profound ways in which humans have altered the planet. Most scientists now accept that humanity is influencing our planet in unprecedented ways, equalling the impact of geological forces like volcanic eruption and earthquakes. The Anthropocene marks a new period in which humans have become the dominant bio-geo-physical force shaping the world.

The impact of human activity on Earth’s ecosystems is one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century. This project asks print-based artists to consider the consequences of human-led ecological change, and to imagine other ways we might live in its aftermath. Ecologies of Change brings together printmakers from two nations bound by a colonial past, who share an ethics of care for Earth’s ecosystems.

Rebecca Solnit has written that “There are times when it seems as though not only the future but the present is dark”, words that seem as disturbingly relevant today as when she wrote them 20 years ago. “[O]ur civilization is close to destroying the very nature on which we depend” she goes on—”the oceans, the atmosphere, the uncounted species of plant and insect and bird”

But she argues that we must nuture hope in this darkness, if we are to imagine and materialise a better tomorrow. We must remember stories of environmental victories, so that we can learn what kind of action helped them to happen, and then to repeat or even refine their successes next time. There is also a need to mourn, Solnit acknowledges, in order to recognise what we have lost, and to realise what must still be protected.

Some artists in this exhibition have done just that, honouring the species and ecosystems that have fallen prey to a capitalist model of extraction and production. The devastation of the 2019 fires in Australia is acknowledged, for example, and the looming extinction of sea turtles on the Western coast, and the ever-present threat that invasive plants bring to indigenous flora. These works help to keep visible what we have lost, they grant respect to the endangered, and they call on us, by implication, to stand up as custodians and stem the tide against future impact.

In addition to mourning, Solnit urges us to also tell stories of possibility that will embolden us to seek change and harness our collective imagination. If we are to change, we must first imagine that change, and envisage other ways to be. Many artists in Ecologies of Change bring this spirit of hope to the exhibition, impelling us, through image, to see our interconnectedness with the world. Some extoll us to walk and notice the light, the land and lichen beneath out feet, others to be more like water—able to flow around obstacles rather than crash against them, receptive and malleable. These works prompt us to be attentive, knowing that when we pay attention the desire to care is also aroused, and we become willing to tend, mend and restore.

The exhibition invitation for ecologies of change features the work of Marian Crawford titled A Blizzard of Signs, a phrase taken from a 1928 essay by Walter Benjamin. Marian observes that information about climate change is made manifest in a blizzard of terrifying signs, both in the environment itself, and in the proliferation of news and political debates. She speculates that an art-work stills these storms, for an instant, to make a space for a different type of knowing. Ecologies of Change, and the artists represented within it, seek to create this kind of space. A space of optimism, as Marian proposes, to engage productively with the threats and challenges the Anthropocene presents.

You are invited to submit work for donation to the Printmakers Council Archive located at Scarborough Museums Trust. 

The collection was originally set up in 1992 but an archive had long been an objective for PmC.  The original request to members in February 1992 noted that the gallery’s permanent collection contained ‘works by Ivon Hitchens, Matthew Smith, Gaudier Brzeska, and prints by Michael Rothenstein, Anthony Gross, John Piper and Ceri Richards’.  The send-out suggested that the archive would be made available for study access, reference and exhibitions, and encouraged members to donate ‘the very best (works) from your oeuvre’.

The donation in 1992 had been the only one until 2016 when PmC in collaboration with Scarborough Art Gallery revived the archive, and this led to a very successful exhibition of all the donated prints together with selections from the collection in the spring of 2017. Since then, the museum has hosted exhibitions of members’ work on several occasions.

Our intention is to select one work from each member in order to provide as comprehensive a representation of the current membership as is possible.  Prints for this donation can be from any date, provided you were a member of Printmakers Council in the year the print was made.  This will help to enlarge the date range of the prints held in the archive.

Size: Flat prints can be up to a maximum size of A1.  3 dimensional works are also acceptable but only if possible to store flat, and under A1 in size when flat.

Selected prints must be submitted flat, unframed, and in good condition with clean borders, wrapped in cellophane with a card backing as if for display in a print browser.  Prints that are considered to fall short of the required standard at any stage will be rejected.

All prints will be photographed professionally before sending to the archive, so please ensure your print is easily removable from the acetate. Resealable cellophane envelopes are preferred.

Please send us a message if you are interested in buying or knowing more about any of the work in this exhibition!

Collages by Geoffrey Wales

Watercolours by Jack Coutu

(Early members of the Printmakers Council)

Emma Mason Gallery

21 Lushington Lane

Eastbourne

East Sussex

BN21 4LJ

www.emmamason.co.uk

Open from Friday 21^st May – Friday 25^th June 2021 (in the gallery and online)

Opening Times: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays 10.00am – 4.00pm

Both Geoffrey Wales and Jack Coutu studied at the Royal College of Art and both are known for their printmaking, Wales for his wood engraving and Coutu for his etchings. However, as with many printmakers, they were also keen to explore making in other mediums and we are delighted to show collages by Wales and paintings by Coutu. There will also be displays of items from both artists archives to include sketchbooks, photographs, and wood blocks.

Exhibitions will be in the gallery and online and all works will be available for sale.

Geoffrey Wales (1912 -1990) was born in Margate, Kent and he studied at Thanet Art School and then at the Royal College of Art (RCA) from 1933-37. It was at the RCA that Wales discovered a love of wood engraving, inspired by his tutors Edward Bawden and John Nash. He is known for his printmaking but during the 1960s he also made collages; small, carefully crafted works using his own printed papers. They explore form, texture and tone in abstract compositions reflecting the landscapes and coastal subjects that inspired him. They have rarely been exhibited and we are delighted to show them at our gallery.

Jack Coutu (1924-2017) was born in Farnham, Surrey and studied at Farnham School of Art before moving on to study fine art at the Royal College of Art (RCA) from 1951-54 where he specialised in stained glass. He also studied printmaking at Central School of Art. He became recognised for his work as a printmaker and in later years became highly acclaimed as a carver of netsuke. Less known are his paintings, both oils and watercolours. His paintings show his fascination for landscape and natural forms influenced by neo romantic artists of the post war era such as John Piper, Graham Sutherland and John Nash. The paintings in this exhibition were mostly made by Coutu early in his career in the 1940s and 50s. They come from Jack’s studio and have not been exhibited before.

Gallery open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays 10.00am – 4.00pm

Open at other times by appointment. Please email or call to arrange.

For more information or high-res images please contact Emma or Richard.

NB. Both Wales and Coutu are Royal College of Art graduates and both were influenced by their tutors, John Nash amongst them. The Towner Gallery in Eastbourne opens on the 18th May with their exhibition; John Nash – The Landscape of Love and Solace. ]]> https://printmakerscouncil.com/prizewinner/ Sun, 27 Dec 2020 17:21:45 +0000 https://printmakerscouncil.com/?p=23390

Victoria Johns
Facing Time
Collagraph
OEV 5/10
2020
41 x 45cm (framed) 39 x 47cm (unframed)
£185 (framed) £130 (unframed)

‘Facing Time’ is a collagraph print inspired by the aerial views coming into land at a U.S. airport, using the colours, shapes and patterns that can be seen on land and along the waterways. This image was awarded a prize by Printmaking Today and it was selected by them from our recent exhibition with ROSL (Royal Over-seas League) CONGRATULATIONS Victoria!