Oh my goodness oh my goodness!!! It is almost upon us - the group exhibition to conclude our scholarship over this academic year through Spike Print Studio and the University of the West of England! Below, for your reading pleasure, is our press release, containing all the wonderful details you could ever hope for!!! Do come and share in our show.
PRINT-CENTRIC Dates: 12 – 31st July 2018, open week days 9-5pm, via Reception. Launch Party: Thursday 19th July 2018 Time: 5 – 7pm Location: F Block Gallery, UWE Bristol, Bower Ashton Studios-City Campus, Kennel Lodge Road, Bristol, BS3 2JT Free Entry
Five professional scholars and five recent graduates were selected for the first UWE/SPS Scholarship programme in July 2017. We have been working this last year, developing our practices, creating opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas and broadening creative networks. We will be exhibiting alongside UWE’s Artist in Residence, Nick Greenglass from 12th July - 31st July. The all-singing and dancing Launch Party is to be enjoyed on Thursday 19th, from 5 – 7pm.
Pushing our individual practices, critiquing each other and developing new lines of enquiry, this has been an opportunity to play and evolve. Accessing alternative environments for printing, the graduate scholars headed to Spike Print Studio and the professional scholars accessed the University, leading to more experimental approaches and networking opportunities.
Etching, monoprint, aquatint, silkscreen, digital and enamel; our materials, techniques and processes vary, but one thing which unifies us all is our pursuit of pushing the possibilities of print. From those recruited within this programme, the eight scholars involved in this show are: Alexandra Higlett, Amy Hutchings, Andrew Wilson, Hannah McVicar, Nick Greenglass, Ruth Ander, Sophie Dowson and Sophie Willoughby:
Alex Higlett is an illustrator & printmaker working primarily in silkscreen, but also other mediums. Her inspiration varies, but recently she has been making imagery around visualisation in Yoga practice.
Amy Hutchings has been experimenting with process and techniques over the course of this scholarship. Primarily concerned with creating tactile, multi-process pieces, she has developed a body of work exploring enamel, etching, aquatint and silkscreen. Imagery is derived from the everyday, with a strong emphasis on hand-drawn, descriptive line and mark-making. Her passion for handmade embraces the quirks and irregularities of process.
Andrew Wilson creates narrative work, looking for inspiration from books, poetry and films. He enjoys the exuberance of fast, gestural marks that emphasize spontaneity and motion through drawing, mainly transferring his works to screenprint.
Hannah McVicar is a modern botanical artist using multi-media printmaking to illustrate plants in all their forms. She formerly created her work through the method of screenprinting but has used the opportunities of the UWE/SPS Scholarship to experiment with aquatints to create historically inspired imagery.
UWE artist in residence Nick Greenglass has been using specialist iridescent pigments creating images that use colour, light and texture to explore themes of altered or changing memory. Using a combination of nostalgic imagery from his past and recycling personal artworks, jarred cartoon characters, warped paintings and visual interference reoccur as themes, reflecting the relationship between recorded visual information and the mind’s eye.
Mixing monoprint, screenprint and etching to make one-off pieces, Ruth Ander is trying to find feeling through texture and colour.
Sophie Dowson has been experimenting with dry point etching and illustrating the poems of Frank O’Hara.
Sophie Willoughby captures inspiration from both her immediate surroundings and foreign travel. Photography is her starting point, images of street scenes, buildings, and people developed and transformed with the mediums of screenprint and the cyanotype process.
