I visited Preston this week, mostly to see the print exhibition Impressit at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery. It came highly recommended by a member of Hot Bed Press and it was a good call.
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.
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.
Paper Walled - collagraph and block print
Even more, I liked her bookarts work 'Bubble High'.
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Katherine Jones' Bubble High
A number of these books were hung from the ceiling - a flock (see the wing in the middle) or maybe a shoal of something prehistoric or deep underwater? They each have a central cord to pull - the lowest hanging invitingly within reach - to make the wings (fins?) flap, and together they form a very atmospheric, slightly mysterious little group that I really wanted to see emerging from sea mist. Each page has words along its edge - it was hard to make out much, but the theme seemed to be 'of the sea'. Perhaps my favourite work there.
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.
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.
Jason Hicklin's works were, I suppose, exactly what you might expect - soft, moody, atmospheric seascapes - but beautiful works. I was aware of him and what his prints would be like, even without having seen any before. He was showing a set of prints made for the Cill Rialaig project - an attempt to resurrect a pre-famine village in southwest Ireland.
Jason Hicklin
What else was there? I liked Pete Clarke's large letterpress posters built around T S Eliot's 'The Wasteland; I was fascinated by Wuon-Gean Ho's Dancing Dresses and Shift; Roohi Ahmed's three 'In Visibility' prints, were excellent - they started from Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man and developed it; I loved Bren Unwin's pieces. Must find out more.
Bren Unwin's Chiasm: miners' cage - monotriptych print: etching, drypoint carborundum
A second, smaller exhibition was Simon Plum's on the stairway walls, Down the Garden Path - drawings and etchings of quirky, humorous images that could almost have been excellent children's book illustrations except probably not all quite for children. I particularly liked Bear entering Shed.
Simon Plum's Bear entering Shed
I had half, no, three-quarters planned to have a look at John Piper's mountain landscapes at the Whitworth, slotting it into the first open hour on saturday, before attending a mezzotint course with Justin Sanders at Hot Bed Press for the rest of the weekend (excellent, by the way, though I don't think I'll be mastering the technique any time soon...) but inevitably I ran out of time, and now the show is over. As ever, Could Do Better.
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