2022 has been the year my left-turn into abstract printmaking really started to go somewhere interesting and began to attract attention.
I’ve sold original, one-off Waves prints to private collectors from the UK to the USA, Tokyo and Australia, took part in the Northants Open Studios and Exhibition, and had my work ‘Waves #11’ selected for the 2022 ING Discerning Eye exhibition in London. All of which took place in the spare time between working for graphic design clients, so the printmaking has been a slow progression at times.
The year ends with my work featured in UPPERCASE magazine (issue 56) as part of an exploration into how sound and music influence art and creative thinking. My printmaking process involves experimentation and happenstance, making spontaneous colour and composition decisions in reaction to the previous layers. This allows for external factors – the most important for me being music – to subliminally influence how a print turns out. A wide and contrasting playlist of music – funk, jazz, pop, folk, soul, rock, hip-hop, psychedelia and dance – is continually soundtracking, influencing and inspiring the work, randomly shuffled by my old iPod.
To accompany the feature and give you a flavour of my studio sounds this past 12 months, I’ve compiled this mixtape. Okay, it’s not a real tape, I’ve had to use Spotify for convenience (and because “home taping is killing music” …unlike Spotify, the benevolent fund for musicians).
Tune in, these waves are sound.
