Artist's Statement
I am a printmaker, and I am fascinated by the different atmospheres that light creates in our environment.
I use variations in light, form, texture and colour to magnify the moods and sensations of the places I have experienced.
During my recent stay in Denmark, I was hugely inspired by the new foreign surroundings. My work became influenced by the more ‘urban’ scenery within which I lived. After a relocation back to Durham at the end of 2009, I’m still very interested in depicting urban spaces that are infiltrated by different qualities of light. I’m now incorporating locations closer to home, and my most recent work draws on impressions from Durham, Newcastle, and even inside my own home.
My compositions aim to combine different moods of light, with contrasting space and surface qualities. I enjoy working with a variety of etching techniques, including wax resist on aquatint, ‘soft’ ground, ‘white’ ground and burnishing, which result in subtle tonal differences within my imagery. I rarely start with line, but instead focus on the highlights within an image, using techniques that build on the areas that will remain light, instead of building up the image with dark line and shading.
Then during the printing process, I apply ink to the plate in quite a painterly fashion (‘À la poupée’) that allows me to vary density and colour in such a way as to exaggerate the effect of the etched image.