My most recent screen-printing series of larger work stemmed from the need to continue to experiment from influences seen and ideas generated. From my continuing artwork including collage work, process of simplification of marks…shapes with bold colour schemes I have been increasingly inspired by the work of Paul Furneaux from the Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition 2019. I have been influenced by his hand printed processes whereby selected landscapes have been re-created through abstraction and distillation in relation to his emotional responses. I have started to use such influences within my screen-printing processes to increasingly allow myself to be influenced by my emotional responses to meaningful natural sources alongside his use of mark making and demarcated areas of colour.
As illustrated in the imagery included within this blog, I have used hand cut stencils throughout this series of work. I continue to increase the scale of my screen-printed pieces within each series of textile work as it seems necessary to do so given the underlying context of my practice concerning the existence of nature. It feels increasingly like a campaign to have my emotional response to the depletion of nature in its many forms seen, heard and responded to, to evoke a response. The cutting of the stencils seemed visceral as did the original collage work and associated sketchbook work. There was much deliberation concerning the placement of the stencils and the colours used, to generate meaningful areas of positive and negative space. I worked on using shapes which started off as fully formed shapes but then were quickly obscured, hidden and obliterated. The simplicity of line was sought against the disappearing shapes to signify evolution, change and extinction.
In accordance with the narrative there was something satisfying from printing blocks of colour onto hand dyed linen through blank screens as I was immediately in the process of creating the imagery more like a painter would without an explicit plan. I was reacting and responding to how each area of colour printed which informed the next step as experienced with my earlier collage work. I enjoyed the increasingly experimental nature of this screen-printing process, of cutting out the hand stencils, of their placement and arrangement and of repeatedly starting again as required. The use of newspaper to mask off areas and as stencils created all sorts of marks when printed on top of with the blank schemes. As the printing inks saturated the paper it took a life of its own and created a range of marks that resembled natural surfaces and skin which will help to influence further textile work.
The use of contrasting hand-dyed linen helped to produce three separate pieces of work, but the shared ways of working and underlying context helped to bring the series together as a unified whole.
Through documenting with journal notes and illustrating through photography in-process this series can be repeated as required and further ideas can be generated for future textile work.
The finished series as above and below highlighted reduced elements of discharge, but the bold use of colour focused upon shape and line remained central to the work. Aspects of shapes and simplification helped to resemble the disappearance of natural habitats set against more sparse landscapes.
WeavePrint 