The 21 Greenwich Printmakers participating in our Winter Print Show are:

Jacki Baxter - 'I came to art and printmaking after ten years as a food stylist in the advertising industry.  I love food and everything to do with the kitchen.  That is why crockery and utensils all feature so prominently in my work. My prints are loosely within the still life genre seeking to reflect the beauty of everyday objects.  I like to place these domestic objects in abstract spaces using colour to enhance the shapes and overall composition. The print techniques I use are traditional cut lino and etched lino, which I combine with handmade stencils. This layering technique allows me to produce the distinctive colours, patterns and textures of my prints.

Kit Boyd - I work in the British romantic tradition, and am particularly influenced by Neo-romantic artists of the 1940s and the Surrealist movement. My work concerns our relationship with landscape and our place in nature, ecologically, spiritually and emotionally. Recent etchings have been primarily influenced by Samuel Palmer and John Minton; they explore modern landscapes in an antique style and are sometimes populated with figures using modern technology.

Nikki Braunton - My first prints were mainly etchings producing very free and fluid images through a technique called sugar lifting. I have been experimenting recently with a combination of dry point and collograph.  The technique gives my prints a dark, haunting quality. My work is inspired by a fascination for children’s stories and fairy tales. I draw inspiration from artists such as Paula Rego, James Ensor, Emile Nolde and Picasso. 
I am fascinated by the humour in the world around me, and the relationships between people. My images are comical but often have a deeper darkness to them. They are about exorcising my demons. 

Angela Brookes -My work centres on the natural world, and my prints explore the mystery and the glory of the landscape, both rural and urban.   I often visit the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk where I am drawn to the vast open spaces and huge skies that are so typical of this area   I enjoy depicting the ever changing effects of light and colour at different times of the day, and as the seasons roll through the year. My favoured printing process is etching, using soft ground, aquatint and spit-bite. I also employ dry-point and carborundum, often using two plates, which produce deep rich blacks where the ink and paper become one. Here the editions are smaller, often only 5–10. I like to vary the wiping on these plates, hence ‘ev’, edition variable.   More recently, I have been experimenting with colour, using two plates with dry point and mono-print, and love to make each image distinct and individual, hence 1/1, ‘unique print’. Artists I admire and who have influenced my printmaking are Rembrandt, Morandi, Hockney and  Norman Ackroyd, who was also my first etching tutor.
 

Guy Butters - Guy calls his work photo-print-making.  At its simplest, this is because he makes hand-made prints from photographs.  But Guy states it in this way to draw attention to how important ‘making’ is in his creative process. There are two equally important sides to Guy’s art: how he sees things; and how he makes them… Each of his hand-made, prints starts its life as a digital photograph… a moment in time, seen and captured by Guy on his digital camera or even his iPhone.  Then each image is developed in the digital darkroom that is Photoshop, accentuating the particular qualities of the scene that Guy set out to capture and producing images suitable for printmaking.  The retouched images are digitally printed onto film and exposed onto silkscreens or photosensitive etching plates.  From these, individual prints are pulled in pretty much the same fashion as they have been made for centuries; as screen prints or etchings (19th and 16th century technologies, respectively). So a very 21st century digital image has been ‘slowed down’ and printed using age-old technology, giving each print the unique tactile and tonal qualities of a hand-crafted, limited edition etching.

Diana Croft - Diana is a painter and printmaker who produces a wide variety of work from mixed media paintings to collagraph prints, linocuts and stained glass panels although she originally trained as an illustrator at Brighton College of Art and Design (now Brighton University). Much of her work is richly coloured and textured with a strong element of pattern and design. She often uses layers of hand-made papers and gold and silver-leaf as well as hand-coloured backgrounds to achieve the effect she desires. Due to the complex methods she uses, the prints, although given an edition number, all vary and each one is a unique piece.  Her inspiration comes from nature; the cycles of growth and renewal, the arid landscapes of India and Morocco and the changing seasons. Recently the rolling hills of the South Downs have provided inspiration for a series of stylised collagraph prints and linocuts with a more delicate English colour palette.

Steve Edwards - Living in London for 30 years has given me many opportunities for observing the city and it’s multi-various moods. I started making prints of the city in response to a group show held at the London Assembly. I created Bridge – east, a view from Waterloo Bridge, one of my favourite places to stand, look, and feel urban. As this series has grown, I have become interested in the dialogue between the sky and the city beneath. I joined East London Printmakers in 2003, which gave we access to a well-equipped studio. I started experimenting with lino in 2005, which has now become my main mode of expression.

Christina France - Working from her studio in West London, Christina regularly spends time in Sweden where her response to the light, water and calm lead to experimental prints and drawings, often combined with emboss offering a tactile journey through space, rhythm, repetition, geometry and chance. 
She uses traditional printmaking techniques, mostly copperplate or zinc etchings, to make small editions of original prints, each one an individual and unique work. Essentially abstract in nature, an underlying narrative can be discerned in certain pieces. Using soft, layered forms which seems to appear and disappear or sharper contrasting geometries, the circular form is omnipresent.  Christina’s most recent work is concerned with the passage of time and the way in which surfaces are affected and transformed by this. Traces of lives that once were whole, now fractured can be discerned in certain pieces.

Clare Grossman - My work predominantly focuses on the search for a personal narrative, an essential energy, the ‘essence’ of a chosen subject or place encapsulated in an emotional response. Working often with a combination of techniques, a final piece may have several layers of printing using an experimental approach together with traditional etching methods to produce work that aims to describe movement, beautiful light, contrasts of solidity against the crispness or warmth of the air and the incredibly mysterious substance of shadows.

Joanna Irvin - Joanna was born in Aberdeen and spent her childhood in Scotland and Ireland. She studied painting in Aberdeen at Gray’s School of Art, and printmaking at Morley College in London. For some years after graduating, oil painting – mostly portraiture– was her speciality, but nowadays she enjoys painting seascapes and other outdoor subjects in gouache and watercolour. Her work as a printmaker is mainly landscape. She is always inspired by water, especially the sea. Other favoured subjects include islands, beaches, rocks and mountains, mainly in Scotland and the Hebrides, but also Tuscany and Nepal. Her etching and aquatint techniques are skillfully used to capture the colour and light of these landscape subjects.

Jennifer Jokhoo - Jennifer Jokhoo is primarily interested in Architectural structures.  Her work traces the development of construction and the transitional phases of the built environment over a period of time. Over the past few years, Jennifer has been depicting architectural forms, with particular reference to the regeneration of London Bridge and in particular the ‘Shard.‘  She has documented the building in transition focusing on its changing layers and shapes.  She is especially interested in the recurring geometry, patterns, the effects of colour, light and textures of building materials.  More recently Jennifer has been documenting the changes in Southbank’s skyline. Jennifer spends a vast amount of time in South East London, where she has been greatly inspired by the Architectural transformations taking place!  She also has an affinity with the place, as her grandparents lived in Borough for many years before emigrating to New Zealand in the post war period. Drawings and photography are used as a starting point for the design and execution of Jennifer’s lino cut prints and etchings. All lino cuts are produced by hand from the initial drawings to the intricate cutting, inking and print editions.

Tammy Mackay - I grew up on a farm in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. I studied at Rhodes University (Grahamstown, South Africa) where I graduated with an Honours Degree in Fine Arts, majoring in Printmaking. Although I have lived in the UK now for many years you can still see an African influence with some of my imagery. I work primarily using etching and monoprint, but am always open to new printmaking techniques and have recently been using photopolymer plate and drypoint often combined with chine-collè. I have recently had a print exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2013.  I have previously had two prints selected for both the 2012 BITE: Artists making prints exhibition and the ING Discerning Eye, at the Mall Galleries.

Sally McKay - Sally’s artistic practice is centered on the moving figure, rhythm and energy, focusing on live performance, and in particular dance, as her stimulus. A Fine Art and Dance graduate of Goldsmiths College, Sally spent over a decade working as a designer in film and publishing before returning to work as a visual artist and taking an MA in Fine Art at the City & Guilds of London Art School in 2002. Sally has worked with many award winning choreographers and dance companies, drawing during rehearsals, then using the drawings to inform her etching, painting, and life size wire sculpture. Sally is Resident Artist at Greenwich Dance, she exhibits regularly across the UK and abroad, including biannual Open Studio exhibitions at her studio in Woolwich.

Bethany Marett - I am very interested in people and our rich and complex inner worlds. I want to capture the aura of the model and the vulnerability (or not) of the nude. I am drawn to interpreting skin as a landscape and working in quite a graphic style, influenced by 1920s woodcuts and artists such as Eric Gill and Aubrey Beardsley. Hockney, Hans Bellmer and Stanley Donwood are other influences. I enjoy abstracting the body, sometimes to the point where it becomes almost unrecognisable. I work in both intaglio and relief. Life drawing is an important part of my practice, and I see etching as an extension of my drawing. I also make sculptural collagraphs and linocuts so my printmaking work has two distinct strands to it –delicate, hesitant, linear etchings, and graphic, high-contrast, embossed reliefs. I enjoy working on quite contrasting things at once and varying my repertoire.

Elaine Marshall - At her studio she works in several printmaking techniques. Inspiration has come from travels in France, Andalusia, Morocco and Nepal. Tuscan hills and Nepalese rice terraces are among the landscape patterns that appear in her prints. Recently, Islamic motifs have been introduced – an early instance being her interpretation of the extraordinary mechanically – moved spiral lattices in the modernistic Institut de Monde Arabe in Paris, where the spirals in their grid frame a traditional Parisian cityscape seen behind a table with a still life, a favourite style and place combined. The spirit of Matisse hovers somewhere outside the proscenium of spirals. Observing foxes in her garden has inspired a series of linocuts depicting urban foxes through the seasons.
Elaine participates in the annual Greenwich Open Studios, part of the Greenwich and Docklands Festival in June. She is a founder  – member and gallery manager of the Greenwich Printmakers, an established co-operative of artists printmakers, who run a gallery in the covered market in the heart of historic Greenwich where her work is permanently in stock. She also takes part in their group exhibitions in the UK and abroad.

Sandra Millar - Sandra Millar studied at Edinburgh College of Art and Goldsmiths College. She taught Art for several years in London and now works full-time as an artist. The paintings and prints evolve from sketchbook notes and observation where the focus is people and their relationship with each other and the space that surrounds them. They are celebrations of life describing transient moments, fleeting glances and complex emotions. The original inspiration to concentrate on the figure came from the opportunity to draw and paint circus performers while they practised. The subjects may be ambiguous or metaphoric, depicting life as theatre with its dangers, tensions and pleasures and as the work develops the figures take  on a life of their own. In her paintings the many layers of glaze build up a richness of tone, colour and contrast while in the prints, dry-point and etching allows the exploration of light and dark through linear and tonal contrasts. Sandra Millar has exhibited regularly since 1993 both in group and solo shows in London and Edinburgh and currently at the Restaurant 109 in Richmond London.

Stephen Robson - Stephen divides his time between photography, painting and printmaking, but all have a common foundation; observing and spending time in a landscape, and from that creating an image on the spot or back in the studio. He joined Greenwich Printmakers in 2010, having produced a series of prints of the Thames at Greenwich. He also works in Norfolk, and often makes trips to the Kent coast and the Thames estuary. “I go back again and again to look at artists such as Rembrandt, Edward Hopper, Paul Nash and Richard Diebenkorn. These painters were also brilliant printmakers. I have a background in photography and have always liked black and white images, and enjoyed making prints in the darkroom. But when I made my first experiments in etching, I discovered a way of making an image that could have depth and interest beyond the smooth surface of the photograph, and this became a fascination. Printmaking is so varied in its surface and texture, compared to the photograph, and with the addition of monoprinting each print can be totally or subtly different, even from the same plate.”

Anthony Salter - Anthony was born in London.  He studied Graphic Design and Illustration  at Goldsmith’s College School of Art.
Since qualifying he has followed a career in museum and exhibition design and, until recently, worked as a graphic designer and illustrator at a London University. A developing interest in printmaking has led to further studies at the London Institute and Morley College. He now works full-time as a printmaker at home and at the Thames Barrier Print Studio. Anthony is a regular exhibitor with work permanently in stock at Greenwich Printmakers. He also takes part in exhibitions in the UK and abroad.

Karen Scadeng - Karen’s work is based on a physical and spiritual response to the land, sea and their atmospheric conditions. Imagery is gathered by working outside in the landscape, with a small sketchpad and colours, feeling the warmth of the sun, the blowing of the wind, watching wildlife and observing the changing seasons. These captured are sometimes reduced in size and worked into monoprints and etchings with such techniques as sugar lift, aquatint and litho crayon used to express inky marks, blowing weather and rough ground.

Sue Whitmore - Sue Whitmore studied Fine Art at the Central & Wimbledon Schools of Art, and Philosophy & History of Art at University College London. 
In addition to Greenwich Printmakers,  she is a member of Norwich-based Lonely Arts Club and is Honorary President of Brent Artists’ Resource. Her work is in collections  in the UK and abroad.  She tutors both landscape weeks in Spain and the Tricycle Theatre’s Life Class.  “My life has three wheels: art, writing and family and my visual art work centres round the human body, imagination and landscape.  I’d be lost without triangulations!” A published poet, she convenes The Brondesbury Group, a Stanza of the Poetry Society.