additional research
fungai marima
fiona fouhy
sea, soil, stone: a summer show
prunella clough
jean dubuffet
belkis ayon
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teaching
printmakers council show, oxo tower gallery
post-grad printmakers london 2025, clifford chance
future projects
future process
residencies/exhibitions
volcanic editions Prize
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fungai marima: artists talk
22 May, UAL
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Fungai's talk about her practice relating to body and place was hugely interesting to me and I saw many overlaps with her work.
I liked seeing how she uses her own body directly in the work. Although this is not something I have done much myself - the work I do making rock imprints - a record of the moment of touch between myself and a rock seemed very relevant. I enjoyed hearing about her very direct relationship between print and performance and what she referred to as a 'trace evidence in time' - capturing the moment of that interaction as the evidence of the moment in time. And how she tries to find a way to place a moment through the body - 'the body as archive'.
Useful references for me to consider were:
Henry Focillon The Life of forms in art, 1989
Suzie Orbach, Bodies, 2009
Bessel Van der Kolk The body keeps score, 2014
How she references 3 books/2 artworks as context in her talk - a good way to think about my practice what would they be?
Combining elements of walking, pigment, plants, works, plastic bags etc. On a walk what is found?….could do this around Kimmeridge?
Indexical imprint – that direct connection – ie like my castings or rubbings research to follow up:
fiona fouhy: artists talk
21 June, Eames Fine Art, Bermondsey
Opened with a poem reading that is inspiring her/core to her work - really lovely/personal introduction was very effective. Her discussion about her process of fieldwork was particularly relevant to me and gives me things to consider in future.
Talked about how working with forests, the moon and context of father dying all relevant.
How she came across temperate forests in UK and then sought them out.
Idea that she is there (on location) and feels nothing sometimes for ages and then gets excited lying in the forest for 7 hours/10 days.
The impact of the durational experience; Getting close with a magnifying glass; Smelling detail
The Greek physis coming up of / upsurge in prescence / nature
Communing coming into being
Goethe thinking like a plant - for me resonates with my idea of thinking like a rock
Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer an inspiration
Mary Oliver - patron saint of paying attention
Latin word of paying attention meaning stretch towards - makes me think of my rock rubbings 'moments of attention'
Tim Ingold on the art of paying attention
Sees her final prints as memories of the place and experience
For me - Physicality in a monoprint that’s not in an etching being able to see/feel the marks made in the drawing more powerful
John Lewis-Stemple Night walking
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sea, soil, stone: a summer show
Frith Street Gallery, London
​I went to see this show mainly because both Tacita Dean and Cornelia Parker had work in it. It was an exhibition that brought together works to 'explore our symbiotic relationship with the environemnt, reflected in recent campaigns to change the dictionary definition of 'nature' to include humans, and ongoing research into complex relationships between fungi, trees and people.
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I was particularly interested to see Cornelia Parker's Black Path (Bunhill Fields) (2013) as this had been a work I had considered when I was thinking about the curation of my summer show. Her work in liquid rubber makes an imprint of the path in a cemetery where William Blake is buried and she talks about it in terms of lifting 'the geography of the city' - a physical rendering of the negative space - an 'unexpected view'. It relates strongly to my rock imprints and the process of making them and her work and ideas continue to inspire me.
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I also enjoyed Tacita Dean's Significant form (2021); a selection of 16 images taken from her collection of postcards that she re-photographed and photochemically hand-printed at different scales and on different papers. The exhibition notes state that she 'selected images that depicted a representation of, or potential for, sculptural form, creating an intuitive journey through objects and formations found in the natural world'. (Frith Street Gallery (2025) Sea, soil, stone: a summer show, London, press release). I found the display and variation in the images fascinating and intriguing, there is no explanation of them which allows us to imagine our own meanings in the arrangement and selection - something to consider in curating my own work.
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Tacita Dean, Significant form (2021); Cornelia Parker Black Path (Bunhill Fields) (2013); Photography: Ben Westoby / Fine Art Documentation
inspiration from the tate modern collection
Works by three artists at the Tate had a strong impact on me over the summer and fit closely to my themes and process.​
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I had seen a reference to Clough's The Rockery in the Tate magazine and wanted to see it. It gives me a strong sense of place and materiality and even though it is titled as a 'rockery' it has intrigue to it. There seems to be mystery in the work - in the paths around the rocks, in how the textures are created and in the contrast between the flat surrounding area and the more heavily worked rockery area. I liked the 'aerial' view and the fact that the rockery seems to have 'edged' its way into the composition - notes I made when looking at it were:
-it looks familiar and strange at the same time
-you start to see things in it but then they are not there
- you look for the rockery of the title and it is there and then it isn't
- you start to see a person, but is it?
- I notice the texture of 'rocks' or 'earth' in the paint
- is it a neat flower bed or just dripping paint?
- is it a painting or a rockery?
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Seeing this work and thinking these things made me think about Dubuffets 'Peopling of the lands' series of works which I had looked at in unit 1. I went back to look at them again. The feeling of people in the landscape not sitting on it or looking at it but being literally in it - like almost buried in it - is a feeling I related to when I am in my rocky places. I don't think I want to bury myself - but maybe I could try it? It also relates to my interest in the Kimmeridge Woman discovered after her skeleton fell from the cliff. After the course finishes I would like to make more prints using carborundum and oil paintings with rocks or earth to play with this materiality.
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As I was working with collagraphs I went to see Belkis Ayón's work again at the Tate Modern - I find them stunning. I have found the scale of these pieces and her use of mulitple sheets an inspiration to my own large multiple sheet installation work for my exhibition and am intrigued to find out more about her methods. The notes to her work state that;
'She would collage together different materials on to a cardboard matrix that was run through a printing press with paper. Due to the varying absorption levels of the materials, which could be anything from sandpaper to vegetable peelings, it was a painstaking and technically difficult process to create images as intricate hers.' (https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ayon-sikan-t15907). I have used a large number of materials for collagraph - but never vegetable peelings! It makes me want to focus more on developing my techniques with this medium.
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Prunella Clough (1963) The Rockery, oil on canvas; Jean Dubuffet (1953) The peopling of the lands, lithograph.
Belkis Ayón, Sikán, 1991; Belkis Ayón,Mokonga, 1992; Belkis Ayón, Sikán (detail), 1991.
professional practice:teaching and exhibiting
teaching
I am continuing to teach at the Art Academy and help to run Oaks Park Printmakers where my current studio is based. Both of these activities give me satisfaction in being in the art world, talking about art and specifically printmaking with other artists that I find generative to my practice. I enjoy sharing my knowledge and supporting others to explore the methods of printmaking. Over the summer I ran a week long course in relief printmaking and I regularly run evening classes with adults. This is something I plan to continue in the future.
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​exhibition at oxo tower
​I have exhibited regularly with the Printmakers Council over the last few years and I was pleased to get one of my collagraph sheets from the MA show accepted into their September exhibition. This provided a challenge in how to frame it as I wanted to show the collagraph with the plaster rock imprint attached to it. I decided to frame it myself using Jacksons canvas frames which would be without glass and give me the opportunity to add the plaster piece. I liked this style of framing as it leaves the print open and somehow 'exposed' which I feel fits the materiality and subject of the rocky textures. I considered other ways of installing the rock imprint (such as a more permanent fixing), but decided that using small pin nails as I did in the MA show was the best way to do it. I would just have to install the plaster myself in situ. This also worked well and I got a lot of attention and positive comments about it.
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exhibition at clifford chance, forthcoming
I was very excited to be invited by Clifford Chance to exhibit in their show 2025 Postgraduate Printmaking in London ‘s art colleges. After discussed with the organiser I agreed to supply three of my sheets framed in the same way as at Oxo Tower, two with attached plaster imprints. This had some challenges as I wanted them all to be made into editions but some of the boards I had already started changing and adding carborundum, so I had to rethink which would be included and make fresh prints form them. I ordered the same frames again from Jacksons and assembled them myself - this too lots of time and felt quite stressful in a busy term at college, but i felt I wanted them to be the same as the one I had already done and couldn't think of a way of it working with glass without the plaster being too vulnerable -indeed the vulnerability of the framing is part of the attraction as it mimics the vulnerability of the myself and the landscape in the work.
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I was very pleased with my finished work and have only a quick shot taken in my studio with not great lighting. the exhibition opens 10 November.
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My work at Oxo Tower Gallery, Sept 2025, Fractured States III, collagraph with plaster rock imprint, 60x80cm, test of rock imprint being held in foam backing board
Fractured States III, collagraph with plaster rock imprint, 60x80cm, Fractured States IV, collagraph with carborundum, 60x80cm, Fractured States I collagraph with plaster rock imprint, 60x80cm,
future plans
There are number of areas of my ongoing work that I want to continue on. These include:
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working further on my collagraphs developing technique and trying new ways to create and ink the plates - including using pigment inks and a more bodily approach to this
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I want to continue the work in Kimmeridge specifically for a while Many of my works feel unfinished and could be developed more - including the sound piece and the idea of the map/book
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I have contacted the Etches Collection museum in Kimmeridge about having a residency/exhibition there and if this does not work out I will find another way to do it
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Volcanic Editions prize - I was very excited and pleased to be awarded a prize ​at the MA show. My prize involves getting a number of days printing with Ian Brown at his studio in Brighton and his specialist area of photopolymer is of particular interest to me. I have been in touch with him and plan to go down next year and develop my rock rubbings/photopolymer prints with him.
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I have ideas for other future work based in place and the landscape which include a project looking at connections between rocks in Cornwall and Brittany, France and a collaboration which might lead to an exhibition
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I think there is a lot to process and consider in the work I have already done. There is a lot of reading which I want to continue and I need to find a way of journaling/writing and thinking through reflection of process that works for me outside of the college setting.
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