AA2A Residency – University of Central Lancashire
Since October last year, I have been artist-in-residence at University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in Preston. I’ve been working on a specific project to create a piece called The Absence of Nature, which (I think) will be a series of chairs highlighting the increased extinction rates of beetles due to climate change and loss of habitat.
I knew that I wanted to use metallic and iridescent inks to screenprint fabric for the chairs so have spent a large amount of my time at UCLan experimenting with different inks, finishes, fabrics and pigments to get what I wanted. I’ve finally started to achieve something with Golden’s interference colours (thankyou Golden!) but it took a lot of research and experimentation.
I have also spent some time at Manchester Museum‘s entomology department, drawing from the thousands of specimens they have. I plan to go back and do some more research – Dmitri and his colleagues at the museum couldn’t be more helpful and to draw from real specimens is invaluable.
As part of the residency I’ve been experimenting with textures and fills, using trugrain and various media to achieve what I wanted, playing around with levels and exposure in Photoshop and when exposing the screens.
I’m finally starting to see the results I want – just need to create the final designs for the fabric using the many beetles I have been sat drawing since the residency started…
Plantlife Commission
Since earlier in the year, I’ve been working on a commission for County Hospital in Stafford. As part of a major ward refurbishment, I was asked to work with patients, staff and other stakeholders to create a ‘medicinal herbs’ themed piece of work for the new Elective Orthopaedics Ward.
We eventually decided on some large scale silhouettes of herbs with a watercolour texture for the eight-metre long corridor walls. These were printed onto vinyl and then cut out with a plotter so each herb was an individual piece of work. Patients and staff created some of the textures for the herbs alongside some smaller pieces that will be framed and hung in the waiting room. Everyone did some fantastic work – I’ll post some pictures of the framed pieces once they are up but in the meantime, here’s some of the wall vinyls and some work from the creative sessions. I’ve also included some of the original drawings for the herb silhouettes and the designs for two posters I’m screen printing that explain the symbolic meaning of the herbs featured in the artwork.
It’s all Bentley’s fault…
Following last year’s project for Bentley Library where I worked with local groups to create a community library chair, I’ve been itching to have a go at making/upholstering another one. So, for a recent exhibition at Hot Bed Press, I decided to create some screenprinted textiles for a new piece of work in the shape of a Parker Knoll armchair.
‘Infestation’ is upholstered in silk, hand screenprinted with hundreds of beetles which appear to be crawling out of the chair. Each piece of material features an individual design created from my drawings of beetles. There are about 100 different species of beetle in the surface design from the Javan Fiddle Beetle (Mormolyce phyllodes) to, my favourite, the Long-Necked Shining Fungus Beetle (Datelium wallacei) – you can’t beat that for a name. The chair also has it’s very own beetle legs, brilliantly made by Arbarus.
The work is part of an ongoing series in which I’ll be exploring chairs and similar products, questioning their form and usability (does a chair have to be functional to be a chair?) and reimagining the original design and finish to manipulate reaction and perception.
To create this installation piece I firstly used Photoshop to generate full-size artwork from scans of my beetle drawings, which I then turned into screenprints. I created individual screens for both the fill colour and the key layer (the final line). I’d pre-cut and labelled the individual pieces of silk for the upholstery so I could control which part of the pattern was on each part of the chair. Once the fabric was printed, I set about upholstering!
Clarendon Square Shopping Centre Artwork
It’s a while ago now but over the summer I worked with some brilliant schools to produce drawings, monoprints, collages and paintings all based on the buildings and landmarks of Hyde. Some of the artwork produced can be seen in a previous post here.
I had the humungous task of scanning all the artwork (which totaled over 300 pieces) and then creating a 20 metre long frieze from it all for permanent installation in Clarendon Square Shopping Centre. The final artwork was printed on a matte vinyl and installed by myself and Chris from Sign Solutions Plus. Being 20 metres long and on a corridor wall it was fairly hard to photograph but here are some images of the final artwork.
Hyde Indoor Market Artwork
Last year, myself and fellow artist Richard Dawson were commissioned by Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council (TMBC) to create some artwork for Hyde Indoor Market. The aim of the commission was to increase knowledge and awareness of the market – we worked with the market tenants to come up with a design and concept and worked with local community groups to produce some of the artwork.
The final design is a sign that says ‘Hyde Indoor Market’, with each individual 3D letter depicting something sold within the market. The letters are a mixture of box frames containing various items, are clad in objects or have graphics applied to their surface.
This is the letter N, which depicts the ladies wear, menswear, footwear and jewellery stalls with an illustration of a wardrobe and the items contained within. The images show the first pencil drawing of the wardrobe and the inked-in versions and then the final one, which was scanned in, cleaned up in Photoshop and then colour rendered in Illustrator. The final letter has a wood effect finish on the sides, with a printed vinyl applied to the front with the illustration on.
Line drawings of my cameras
As part of my printmaking course, I’m creating a series of prints of cameras using different techniques. As we started the course with trace monoprinting, I got into doing line drawings of the cameras I own and now I can’t seem to stop. Here are a few of them. I’ll post the actual prints once completed.
Praktica Novex KAF
Panasonic Lumix FS-14
Boots 415 Disc Camera
Canon Ixus 430
Being A Freelance Artist 