Group exhibtion & Residency
Ikon Gallery
2024.
The centrepiece of Start the Press! is an antique, flatbed printing press from Wolverhampton School of Art, taking its position at Ikon gallery as a form of occupation in the tradition of the student art-school sit-ins of the 1960s, and in response to the current challenging economic landscape. I spent three days working in the gallery-come-printmaking-studio operating the press and producing new prints, Lessons in Singing which were subsequently exhibited in the space.
Lessons in Singing is a response to the ‘School Prints’ series initiated by arts campaigner Brenda Rawnsley in the 1940s. Adopting the size, shape and border format of the original prints, I utilised the imagery of a Song Thrush with its young in the nest to connect with ideas of consumption, educational labour, and care. The edges of the print are adorned with open baby bird mouths in dry-point etching, the centre a painterly mono-type. Produced through a laborious inking-up process, each layer is a trace of the numerous bodily gestures involved in printmaking
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