Artist Residencies
Venice, Italy
After completing a month long Artist Residency in Venice, Italy in October 2018 I left this unique experience with a respect for the Venetian people and an understanding of their need to protect the beauty and delicacy of their City.
I equate my time in Venice with the opportunity of seeing a beautiful woman across a room. I am unable to take my eyes off her. She is used to the looks and controls what I am able to see. I will not know her or speak with her but I will leave and be unable to stop thinking of her.
There is a strength in the Venetian people and their City.
Iron bars cover the windows, hard surfaces such as marble finish the walls/floors. These strong materials are presented in a beautiful manner – each with an individual design and detail but they are there to protect the City from the prying eyes of visitors. There is a strong positive and negative space created by these materials and their application to the facades.
Venice allows us to view her beauty from a distance. This fragile, delicate, unique City only remains viable because of the careful stewardship of its citizens.
The Intaglio pieces created during this time capture this strength and beauty. The works speak to my ‘Venetian Seduction’ and how I will always treasure the view I was privileged to have of her.
Venetian Guard Corte de L'Albero / 2018 Intaglio (30" x 22")
Venetian Guard Est 2 / 2018 Intaglio: Chine Colle (ochre) 8" x 8"
Venetian Guard Nord 1 / 2018 Intaglio: Chine Colle (ochre) 8" x 8"
Venetian Guard Est 1 / 2018 Intaglio: Chine Colle (ochre) 8" x 8"
Venice Unguarded / 2019 Silkscreen 6 Colour with Hand Inking (17" X 14")
Venetian Guard North / 2018 Intaglio (8" X 19.5")
Venetian Guard North Est 4 / 2018 Intaglio: Chine Colle (14" X 19.5")
Barcelona, Spain
In the late 70’s while studying History of Art for my degree, I was inspired by the work of the great Catalan architect who worked at the turn of the 20th Century, Antoni Gaudi. I visited Barcelona in the early 80’s to see his buildings for a brief time and knew I would have to go back and spend more time viewing his work, sketching and interpreting the unique effect his work has had on me.
2021 is the year that I was able to take part in a month long Artist Residency in the Barcelona area. After viewing, sketching and photographing the buildings, Casa Mila, Casa Batllo and Guell Palau, along with Guell Parc, I took this inspirational material to the residency and produced the piece titled ‘Trencadis.’
The title references a technique that Gaudi invented of arranging various tiles, broken dishes, and other ceramics in compositions placed on benches, roof chimneys and other elements throughout his buildings. The colours chosen and special arrangement of shapes are inspired from his work in Barcelona. The reduction woodcut method suited my desire to carve wood in Spain as a way to pay tribute to Antoni Gaudi and the joyful, positive and original work he left the Catalan people in the early 1900’s.
Trencadis / 2021 Woodcut: 5 Plate 11 Colour (43.5" X 32")
Barcelona Skyline / 2022 Woodcut: Reduction 3 Plate 4 Colour (20" X 30")
Trencadis 1 / 2021 Woodcut: Reduction 3 Colour (12" X 28")
Palau Guell 1 / 2022 Woodcut: Reduction 4 Colour (12" X 7.5")
Trencadis 3A / 2021 Woodcut: Reduction 3 Colour (28" X 12")
La Pedrera 1 / 2022 Woodcut: Reduction 4 Colour (12" X 7.5")
Trencadis Quatre / 2021 Woodcut: Reduction 3 Colour (8" X 8")
Casa Battlo 1 / 2022 Woodcut: Reduction 4 Colour (12" X 7 .5")
Trencadis 4 / 2021 Woodcut: Reduction 3 Colour (14.5" X 28")
Trencadis Un / 2021 Woodcut: Reduction 3 Colour (7.6" X 7.6")
Trencadis 2 / 2021 Woodcut: Reduction 3 Colour (12" X 28")
Trencadis Tres / 2021 Woodcut: Reduction 3 Colour (10.5" X 10.5")
Trencadis 5A / 2021 Woodcut: Reduction 3 Colour (28" X 12")
Trencadis Cinc / 2021 Woodcut: Reduction 3 Colour (8" X 8")
Grinneabhat, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides Islands, Scotland
What I can fully appreciate after a month is the sense of calm, rugged beauty and permanence that are present here. The vastness of the Atlantic Ocean along the west and north of the Isle of Lewis is inspiring to me - the weather it brings from other parts of the world and the potential dramatic systems it can carry to this ancient coastline. Rock cliffs, in all their magnificence, appear as a protective wall - buffering the sea and keeping it at bay so that the citizens of this Isle have the land to live on and cultivate to provide for themselves.
My practice as a print artist changed as a result of being in the Outer Hebrides. The landscape is so completely surrounding with the big, moving sky and unique colors of the moors, lichen and rock formations that my subject matter was in front of me. The landscape was what most impressed me and inspired my work.
Technically, I had not hand printed any of my work previously. There was no traditional print making equipment on the Isle, so I looked at alternative options, such as hand burnishing, when printing here. Carving the five wood plates with a strong grain into various sections of the sea cliff image I worked up added a natural wood grain to the piece that would have been pressed out had I had a traditional printing press. The hand burnishing expresses the grain as part of the image in the cliffs. A natural element in a natural environment. Colors of the cliffs, moors, sky, water all impressed upon me the uniqueness of the environment and I endeavoured to capture them in the piece.
Sea Cliff at Port Mhor Bhradhagair / 2023 Woodcut: Reduction 5 plate 13 color printed on raw silk fabric with linen border (85" X 16")
Sea Cliff at Port Mhor Bragar - Mullach na Creige / 2023 Woodcut: Reduction 1 plate 5 color (20" X 15")
Sea Cliff at Port Mhor Bragar - Meadhan na Creige 1 / 2023 Woodcut: Reduction 1 plate 4 color (20" X 15")
Sea Cliff at Port Mhor Bragar - Meadhan na Creige II / 2023 Woodcut: Reduction 1 plate 4 color (20" X 15")
Sea Cliff at Port Mhor Bragar - Meadhan na Creige III / 2023 Woodcut: Reduction 1 plate 5 color (20" X 15")
Sea Cliff at Port Mhor Agar - Bonn na Creige / 2023 Woodcut: Reduction 1 plate 5 color (20" X 15")