Print Club News / October 2023
I’ve been meaning to put together this newsletter for quite a while now, apologies that I haven’t been in touch a bit sooner. The summer has been really busy here, I’m not entirely sure why. In part I think my residency at the Centre for Print Research has turned into a far bigger opportunity than I originally envisaged and the process of making the most of my time there, fitted in alongside my regular practice, has been a stretch.
It’s been an amazing opportunity to create a series of new editions, using some technology and processes that are really contemporary and completely new to me. I’m hoping to complete my series of six photopolymer etchings, entitled Capsule, by the end of this month, and in fact I’m looking forward to having that work on display at Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair later in October.
Working with Dr Angela Thwaites and the CFPR
I’ve been making and refining my glass edition, entitled Vessel, over the summer. It remains a work in progress. The top image in this email is of a 3d printed, one to one scale PLA maquette of the work, ready to be burnt out in the kiln, ahead of being cast into glass.
I’ll be working with Dr Angela Thwaites, a noted British glassmaker, in her London studio later in the autumn, in the hope of completing the work before Christmas. There’s a lot of polishing and grinding involved to complete the 11 glass components that make up the work. Angela’s own work is well worth a look, her website is here.
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Angela has a fascinating video about her practice and studio here too >
Finally there is a third edition, Rock / singularity that is derived from a 3D scan of a rock from my garden. It’s an enlarged version of the work that featured in my most recent edition for the Print Club. There’s a video about the residency in the works and a catalogue and some audio pieces too, which I’ll share with you as soon as they go online.
The RWA Open 2023
I have a Lino / bronzed piece on show here in Bristol at the Royal West of England Academy this autumn. The annual Open is as lively as ever, and it’s been a treat to have a piece selected to hang in the main gallery, beautifully positioned facing the main doors into the space. It’s been lovely to be back in the RWA galleries post covid, especially as the whole building has been beautifully refurbished. If you haven’t been to see the revamp yet, I’d recommend it.
Simon Miccio Gallery and Isabelle Austill-Barker
Alongside the residency, I’ve been making work for a number of private clients, both here and in America, notably a set of ten prints for a curator in America based out of the Simon Miccio Gallery in Aspen, Isabelle Austill-Barker. That work has gone really well, and it’s been a delight to work with a new gallery overseas. I’m hoping there may be more to come!
I’ve also been completing a set of four works for a collector’s home here in Bristol. They’re slated to be installed in the next couple of weeks, so I’m hoping that will generate some good insitu images too.
New works for the Print Club
I’ve been thinking, as always, about what to make for the next few Print Club editions, I’ve got a number of ideas in progress. I’ve been lucky enough to spend some time at Spike Print Studio this September, learning how to make gum prints with master printmaker Martyn Grimmer.
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Martyn Grimmer / Spike Print >
Under his expert tutelage I’ve worked up two new pieces, a cyanotype and a gum bichromate print, at least one of which I’m hoping to edition for the Print Club. Both Editions rely on some old-fashioned dark room techniques that have become broadly redundant in the modern world. I think there’s some real value in exploring the interplay between the digital image and these older printmaking techniques, to see if there’s some interesting hybridity there. The Platinum print edition I made for the club was also an early form of gum printing.
Gum bichromate in particular is the earliest form of full colour printing that we know of. It’s an intriguing technique which uses a mixture of pigment, gum Arabic and potassium dichromate to create a coating that is light sensitive and can be applied directly to pretty much any paper. By making 3 or 4 colour separations of an image and changing the pigment colour in the gum mix between exposures, the process allows you to build up a full colour print, adjusting and tinting the work as you go. The results are subtle, softer than a modern print, and have a real charm too.
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Gum bichromate printing on Wikipedia >
I think I may apply to become a member at Spike Print. It’s a great local studio and it would be good to use the facilities there more often and start editioning experimental works more freely in my own time. It should lead to some interesting outcomes between the digital tools I have here and the analogue equipment that they maintain and make accessible there. I like the idea of combining partially digitally printed works with more analogue overlays, it could lead to some really interesting outcomes.
Speech to text
I managed to injure my wrist at the weekend, so I’m trying a new approach here. I’m dictating these thoughts using the speech to text tool on my iPad. It’s a completely different way of working from the more normal typing and amending. I’m not sure if I like it yet but it does give me the opportunity to blog even though my right hand is completely out of action. I suspect it may make for a slightly more conversational tone?
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair
26 - 29 October | Edition 8
I'll be exhibiting new work with the CFPR at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, coming up at the end of October. Slightly surprisingly I’ve also been invited to participate in a panel discussion there on the Friday morning. I think we’ll be discussing the state of the art in contemporary printmaking.
If you’d like to come and hear me talk on the Friday, or if you’d like tickets for the fair on another day, please do drop me a line and I’ll get your name put on the list, it would of course be lovely to see you there.
Thoughts and digressions
There’s an interesting issue around the idea of what’s a viable project and what isn’t. Somewhere along the way you have to gain enough confidence to give yourself permission to make a piece of work that you want to believe in even if it doesn’t appear to fit into your normal way of working. It can be tricky to free yourself up in that way! I’ve been enjoying this Sky Arts show on Matisse, who I think was a master of allowing himself the freedom to roam through different media and techniques over the years. His use of colour and line are both sublime too of course.
I’ve got a couple of ideas that I think could be good, maybe! They’ll both deviate a certain distance from what I’ve been doing up to date, and maybe that’s for the best.
One of the ideas is to use macro photography to create a series of images of the home, my home, which might then be printed in a kind of stacking concertina. I quite like the idea of recording particular moments in time, and particular places too. I wonder if there’s something quite interesting to be gained from making a series of quite close up images focusing in on blocks of colour and texture from around the house here. Maybe I’ll free up a couple of days and see if the idea works at all. I can imagine it as a closed loop perhaps, or a series of cylinders that may stack in some way. A freestanding edition.
I’m also quite interested in the idea of making a kind of journey piece, where I photograph a series of monochromatic images from the local roads and pavements that I walk on daily, and use those images as the basis for a new edition that uses the fairly rigid mark making of the road painter as the basis for a graphic work that could have blocks of colour integrated around the white lines..
And there could be some reference to Every building on the Sunset Strip by Ed Ruscha, a really influential work, and a beautiful one too..
Mali Morris / Ikon Gallery
I thought I’d list a few things here that I’ve seen recently, that may be of interest to you too. I was up in Birmingham working at the Lux Gallery and managed to find a couple of hours spare to visit the Ikon Gallery too.
They have a fantastic solo show by Mali Morris, her abstract colour paintings are so profoundly full of joy it’s an absolute pleasure just to be in the space with them. The trip reignited in me the idea that the work could just be about the sheer joy of light and colour in a space. The work I’ve been making during my residency has taken a far more complex path than that and I’m not sure if it benefits from the extra complexity, although until it’s all completed it is clearly too early to judge.
Freize London 2023
I'm looking forward to visiting Frieze London this Sunday, with my friend Anna Gillespie, the noted British sculptor. It's always a great opportunity to take the temperature of the contemporary art scene in all its pomp. I’ll take some photos while I’m there and maybe post some here if there are some good things to share. There should be!
Finally, for now, I’m going to put a link to a YouTube video that I’ve enjoyed recently. This is the rather laconic Marc Vaux talking about his work, light and colour, which I thought had some real charm.
I look forward to being in touch again shortly with a little more news about the next piece, which I suspect may be a cyanotype, and when it may be ready to edition.
In the meantime I hope you’re enjoying the autumn.
Best as ever,
Chuck Elliott
