ARTIST STATEMENT:
‘I am an illustrator, painter, and Fine-Art printmaker
who portrays society and modern events through pain8ng.
I work in London and Lucerne, Switzerland.
My aim is to showcase my sociopolitical and poetic works,
even in a futuristic context. I draw inspiration from literature,
from historical references by German painters and illustrators
of the 20.th Century like George Grosz, OEo Dix, E.L. Kirchner
and from Italian Futurists artists Luigi Russolo and Umberto Boccioni.
Also, from my research from various sources,
from my travels to other places and countries.’

McCormick has always sought out collaborative working across other disciplines. A good example of this is ‘MYAM’, a collaborative project, which consisted of a genetic scientist, Dr. Mark Wilcox, two sound artists; Furlong and Janes and herself as a visual artist. The first stage of the collaboration required each collaborator to donate a sample of blood in exchange for a fluorogram of their own DNA signature. This would be the visual resource for the work produced.

Her MA body of work, Sudarium, consisted of a base photo intaglio image of a Cycladic head, upon which disparate elements were overlaid.

As part of her PhD, she produced a body of viscosity etchings at the Atelier Contrepoint in Paris, under the direction of Hector Saunier and Juan Valladares.

After her PhD, her practice expanded to encompass sound embedded prints, for example, ‘Cern Higgs Boson’ and ‘The Sound of the Sun’, utilising spectrograms of sound.

McCormick developed an interest in frequencies, generated from a wave generator, from which a Cymatic body of print work was created. Each frequency, made a different pattern and she captured these as collograph printing plates.

She also explored the frequency of natural materials, such as pure linen and pure wool, which have a high frequency of 5000mHz, holding healing and good health properties.

Further examples of her work may be seen at;

www.josephinemccormick.com

Facebook; Josephine Mc Cormick Artist/Printmaker

Instagram; Josephine McCormick @cre8ni

Diane studied Visual Art at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, focusing mainly on printmaking. This was followed by a career as a television graphic designer producing title sequences and promos for dramas. This influenced her work on her return to printmaking, both visually and technically.

Favourite printmaking processes include lithography, monotypes, image transfer and photopolymer etchings. A print always starts with a photograph, a snapshot of time. This image becomes the source of a print through various layers of mark-making processes, resulting in small, variable editions.

‘I am inspired by the fleeting instances in time, those half-seen possibilities caught through images, be it scenery or a beloved object. I catch these chance moments which seem to tell a story in a photograph and translate them into prints.’

Diane’s most recent exhibitions include the following:

‘From Whernside’ as part of the PMC’s 60th celebrations at Footprint Gallery at Fusion

‘Over The Bridge to Waterloo’ Southbank Printmakers ’Tides and Tales’ at Morley Gallery

‘Weather Coming In’ at Oxmarket Contemporary Gallery

‘London Skies – From Upper Ground’ at RHACC with Wednesday Printmakers

Instagram: @dianemclellanart

Website: dianemclellan.com

Originally her work was mainly etching on steel plates based on subjects ranging from landscape (images 13, 14, 15) to women’s heads (images 9, 10, 11, 12). Her use of steel plates allowed her to work quickly and without the need of aquatint.

Her practice is constantly evolving as does her subjects and source material. “Mr Turner’s grand design” and “Homage to Piero della Francesca” (images 7 & 8) come from her “Outside in” series.  In image 8 she took one of his most iconic works and placed the background of the double portrait within their silhouettes.

During the pandemic Martin had plenty of time to take stock of her work and she decided to make the radical change and remove the very toxic materials she used for most of her life with etching, and move to drypoint. The Arts Council of Ireland facilitated this with a generous grant enabling her to refit her studio and safely dispose of the acids.

With this move she felt she needed to also change subject matter. Like many people during the pandemic lockdowns, she found herself on daily walks. It was on these walks she began to make drawings of many places and objects she previously passed, barely noticing. The drawings led to the latest series, “Hidden in plain sight” (See Home Page)  These drypoints have been selected for the Royal Academy, London, Royal Hibernian, Dublin, and Royal Ulster Academy, Belfast exhibitions.

The drypoint “Sanctum” (image 6) was Martin’s response to the Graphic Studio in conjunction with a homeless charity’s fundraiser which had the theme “Home”. Fifty printmakers from the Graphic Studio took part in it.  She consciously decided not to use an obvious subject and chose a nest, as she felt its fragility represented the precarious nature of some peoples living situations, and how they can become homeless overnight. The fundraiser ran for four years and collectively raised almost €90,000 for the charity.

Martin is passionate about traditional printmaking and on its promotion in the face of the onslaught of reproductions. She regularly gives printmaking demonstrations in Ireland and Italy. Also, on the first Sunday in December she opens her studio to the public and demonstrates printmaking.

 Milena Michalski is Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London. Her visual arts practice engages particularly with place and perception, site and sight, and complements her academic research.

Working with printmaking and camera-less, analogue photographic techniques, often through site specific installation, Milena traces hidden or suppressed stories of places or moments. She uses plant pigments and botanical materials in her prints and is currently experimenting with making her own natural screenprinting inks.

Milena co-runs alternative process workshops at Darkroom London including ‘Albumen Printing’ and ‘The Silver Garden: Cultivating Camera-less images’.

Recent publications include:

‘Alternative Photographic Processes: Developing Your Fruit and Veg’,
(with Elisabeth Scheder-Bieschin), Black + White Photography, issue 308, November 2025, pp. 66-69

‘Planting Prints’, Printmaking Today, vol. 33, no. 131, Autumn 2024, pp. 34-35

Enmeshed

The aviary prints are part of ‘Enmeshed’, Milena’s series of cyanotypes on Fabriano Accademia paper, created for Michaela Nettell’s book ‘LESS A BUILDING: Interactions with the London Zoo Aviary’, published September 2021.

https://www.passen-gers.co.uk/post/659760077590478848/passengers-is-delighted-to-announce-its-publishing

These cyanotypes originate from photographs, many taken by Milena on 35mm film during the Covid-19 pandemic enforced isolation period, when the aviary was undergoing transformation, others taken by Michaela Nettell earlier, when the aviary could still be entered.  Milena developed her film in a homemade leaf solution, and exposed the cyanotypes in sunlight. Some prints in this series were also toned in leaves or wine tannin. The interaction of nature and the man-made is key in both subject and process of this work.

Still Standing

‘Still Standing’ is a site-specific cyanotype installation made for St. Augustine’s Tower, the oldest building in Hackney, London. This tower is all that survives of the original parish church, which was demolished in 1798. 

Phytograms

A phytogram is a print made by harnessing the internal chemistry of plants to create images on photographic emulsion, which is usually coated on to paper, but can also be on glass or film. Plants are treated with developer (Milena makes hers from plants), and then pressed into the emulsion and exposed to light. Depending on the pressure applied to the plant, a phytogram can take on a deeply haptic quality, because the plant can emboss itself into the emulsion, or it can be more of a surface image. On glass, in particular, a phytogram can become three-dimensional, as the emulsion can move and loosen during contact with the wet plant, and when it re-dries it gains extra texture. On paper, a phytogram can range from appearing to be a delicate, shaded pencil drawing, to seeming more like a strong charcoal or ink line-drawing. Phytography is, ideally, more than a technique; it is a two-way interaction between humans and nature, a consideration of other species. One of the special qualities of a phytogram is its unpredictability: each plant is unique and so too is each set of environmental circumstances during creation.

Milena’s phytograms tend to use plants from locations specific to each project.

‘Lucia in Lumine’ is part of a series of phytograms, including this sculptural one on glass set within an illuminated wooden house. The image is created from leaves growing in places that the photographer Lucia Moholy lived and worked. For more on Milena’s project see it featured in the documentary film ‘Lucia Moholy: Bauhaus Photographer’ written and directed by Sigrid Faltin, 2024.

‘Fade Away (Radiate)’ is a phytogram combined with a chemigram print, in which various plant and food substances were added to the light-sensitive paper to create resists and make marks, along with the plants.

Steve Mumberson, Co Chair comments ‘The choosing of the PMC prize winner at the East London Printmakers Exhibition ‘Festival of Print 2025′ was a very difficult process since there was a good range of engaging works and good examples of artist works from artists who were already members. Within my short list there were examples of highly crafted traditional approaches and works that involved the latest wide use of digital process.  Subjects spanned from the deeply personal, issue based work to formalist engagements and works that were a celebration of the potential of printmaking.  It was the future potential and range of ideas that lead me to choose Shelia Woollam for our membership PMC Prize, although there were many other exhibitors who made the decision difficult.  So a warm welcome to Shelia as a new member and hope to see her work in next year’s programme of shows.’

He sees all printing technologies as both tools for art creation but also for its dispersion, however he considers thought and play to be the essential instigators of art. His work is informed by print as a concept and also by his love of drawing.

Commended: Tori McLean with her colourful identities that manifest as both charming and creative.

Commended: Emilijia Pliaukstaite with her vivid enigmatic textured work

Her family were working-class Londoners; inspired by local and community history, her background has influenced her politics, academic research, and artistic practice. Recently she has expanded her practice to include wood engraving as well as her work in Lino, Wood Cut and Etching.

She cuts into the surface of both art object and representation, exploring how the viewer might look underneath the image and its representation.

She uses use both relief and etching processes, depending on the subject, sometimes  working  between them. She  began printmaking by using lino cut because she was drawn to  the tactile quality of cutting, the physicality of digging and pulling- cutting away the surface to reveal the image.

She used uses the act of cutting and etching to develop  images that explicate , the visceral anger of inequality and political disengagement.

As a feminist and a trade unionist, many of the campaigns she is involved with,  Injustice, Protest, The Rights of women, Global warming/Climate change threats to the natural world, are central themes  in the work she makes.

Loraine Monk’s creates print  images using both relief and etching processes.

Her most recent work has focussed on Woodcuts and experimenting with larger plate etchings and monoprints…including creating print plates in galleries and other spaces outside of the studio setting… always returning to issues of protest and resistance, environmental destruction, occluded histories and fragmented memories

After Relief printing she was drawn to the narrative quality of etching  and its ability to  metamorphosis the plates as they are worked on. One of her favourite artists is Paula Rego.. she learned that the best story tellers, like her, like Goya ,  and Rembrandt, all worked the plates.. Rego  using sometimes nine different tones on an aquatint. Nowadays she uses use both relief and etching processes, depending on the subject, sometimes  working  between them..

She has exhibited in a number of independent Galleries, group shows and museums, as well as larger mixed shows, including the International Original Print Exhibition , the Society of Women Artists, New English Art Club.  Printmakers Council and Woolwich Contemporary Print fair.

Loraine Monk

Instagram and web address

https://www.instagram.com/lorainemonk/?hl=en

https://www.lorainemonkartmatters.com