Ten printmakers are involved, all of whom apparently have links of some kind with UCLan. Three rooms are given over to the show, the third being shared with older prints that presumably belong to the art gallery's collection. Of course, some pleased me more than others but that's only to be expected - I don't expect others necessarily to agree.
I had come across Katherine Jones's work just about everywhere except for real, until the recent exhibition at Lime Gallery, Settle, which included some of her pieces. The glow of light from her prints has always attracted but I found the Settle prints obscurely disappointing. I couldn't quite say why - it could have been that they had all become a little too familar (as I said, everywhere) but I think it was also that, right up close, they didn't seem quite as, as perfect as I had been anticipating. It was just a thing, a little sad and surprising, but we all accept these small betrayals of expectation. However, for whatever reason, I didn't have the same reaction at the Preston show. Certainly they were bigger prints which maybe automatically makes you step further back - and at Settle I did realise that taking a step back helped - but even close they retained their glowing magic and floatiness. Had my level of expectation changed? I don't know what it was, but they looked really good.
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I really like Anne Desmet's work, not withstanding all my wood engraving reservations, and was completely engaged by her excellent exhibition at the Whitworth (good grief - was that really 2008?) but I felt her prints here did not show up to advantage. The wrong sort of space? The wrong sort of company? Or it could have been laziness on my part, I know. Whatever, I just found myself wandering past thinking 'Anne Desmet' and moving on.