Sennen / proofing the edition
Wow. The year moves on briskly, and we seem to have arrived in June, and at Edition #22 for my Experimental Print Club.
I’ve been working on this new drawing on and off for a couple of months now, and feel it merits some kind of outing, so I’m going to proof it, think about sizes, and make it into a piece for the Print Club. I think it’ll work best on a flat matt paper, so I’m going to try it on the Hahnemühle 305gsm 100% cotton rag, at least to start with.
I started drawing this piece in response to my XGen CV series, sometime back in the Spring. Like XGen, it takes on the idea of creating an underlying grid structure and then building some kind of framework around it, that pushes the geometry in some unexpected and hopefully quite lyrical ways.
I don’t know if it’s immediately apparent, but I’ve been enjoying and deconstructing some of Sonia Delaunay’s work. I’m attracted by the way she lays out her geometry, with a beautifully loose feel, and a great eye for colour. There’s something of real joy there, and I’m intrigued and keen to explore the way she builds an image out of interlocking forms, as opposed to making the work from a singular whole, which is more normally the approach I would use. To some extent I find this to be a more ‘designed’ way to approach a work. It allows for far more freedom to move and modulate the colour blocks and image areas than I would normally feel able to do. As always, it ultimately comes down to trusting the process and allowing the work to flow in the moment.
The drawing started out with what I think of as a Peacock palette, greens and blues mostly, but as it progressed I added in some sandy oranges and yellows, and some whites and light blues, so it seems to me to have moved into something nearer to a kind of abstracted landscape. But maybe that’s just me!
I’ve titled it Sennen, a beautiful beach not too far from here, deep into west Cornwall. It’s a place I’ve visited a few times, memorably with an old friend who is sadly no longer with us. I find myself living with his memory now, and it gives me some real pleasure to think of him enjoying lazy days in Cornwall, with our families.
By coincidence, and I do almost always find that my titles somehow seep from my subconscious into my conscious mind from several quite disparate thoughts as I work, Sennen is also the title of a sublime track by Ride, one of the great bands of my generation, to my mind! I’m including the link here.
When I had a studio on Greek St in London, I remember needing a new amp for the space, so I headed off to Tottenham Court Road with a copy of the EP, to test out a few in a high end listening room there. The attendant was horrified at my choice of track, suggesting that we might be better off audio testing something altogether more open and upbeat. I wasn’t going to be put off of course, so for a little while the shop was filled with the sound of Sennen, playing through some amazing audiophile equipment I couldn’t dream of affording, either then or now.
As covid abates I find myself living in a time that seems to be opening up again, which is great, but has nevertheless delivered me to a place where my memory seems to play a larger part in my day to day practice than it ever used to. Maybe that’s just a component of age! I’m not sure…
I hope you’ll love the new print when you receive it, not entirely sure when that will be yet, but hopefully quite soon! It’s certainly intended to capture something of the summer, perhaps in a coastal location.
Until then, I hope the summer is beautiful where you are…
With best regards,
Chuck Elliott
If you’d like to receive three or four exclusive new editions in the post each year, alongside personal news and views from the studio, and invitations to shows and fairs, please do consider becoming a member of my Experimental Print Club. You can join or leave the club at any time, with absolutely no obligation to stay any longer than you want to.
New works are sent out, somewhat sporadically, throughout the year, often in line with the changing seasons. Each piece is unique, exclusive, and only available on the day it’s editioned, the size of the edition being determined by the number of members on the day.
I hope the club presents a more personal and intriguing way to connect with the studio, by creating a platform for collecting engaging new works for your home. The club is hosted online here, and I send out fairly regular blog posts and emails about the work too. I’d like to think that it’s an interesting proposition!
Membership is priced at £30 per month inc. UK delivery, or £35 for an international address.
