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On Dreaming

Exhibition:
10 May - 05 July 2025

Viewing Event:
Thursday 22 May 6-8pm


Top Left: Grace Sharp, Flowers From Home, Main: Yuliia Syrenkova, Tree Ladder (detail), Bottom: Maura Hawkes, Almond Trees with Stars.

This exhibition presents works made by three young artists - Maura Hawkes, Yuliia Syrenkova and Grace Sharp - who have recently completed a bursary at Northern Print. 

The bursaries, funded by Idlewild Trust, allowed the artists to spend time in the studio over the last 12 months experimenting with printmaking, learning new processes as well as developing and sharing ideas about print.

Each artist is presenting finished works made during and following on from the bursary programme:

 

"The bursary at Northern Print allowed me the luxury of time to explore and experiment in print. Before beginning the bursary I had just graduated from university and was looking for ways in which to develop and hone my artistic practice in what is becoming an ever-growing difficult terrain to navigate as a young artist. At this time I had an expanding interest in print, a medium I had first discovered whilst at university and had a small amount of experience in, and was looking to gain more. The bursary at Northern Print allowed this seed of interest in print to grow and thrive with the help of technical expertise from the studio technicians Helen and Alex, which proved invaluable in cultivating a competence and confidence in the workshop. The bursary provided plenty of time to both get to grips with which techniques suited me and my practice best, and also create a new body of work to extend upon. It was an incredibly rare and valuable experience which allowed me to foster a love for the intricacies of the craft of printmaking, which I am continuing to expand upon, taking my new-found knowledge to create further new works in print."

- Grace Sharp

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Maura Hawkes

Maura Hawkes is an artist based in Newcastle Upon Tyne. This series of work reflects on time spent in the Rainforest in Central America through woodblock printing and collage, and uses plant based Indigo and Weld pigments.

Maura’s art practice focuses on using sustainable and natural materials, often assembling multiple elements from one place within an art piece, leading to her work having a deep connection to the land it’s from. 

Yuliia Syrenkova

Yuliia is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist from Ukraine (based in Newcastle), working across film, photography, drawing, and printmaking. 

Yuliia combines printing techniques, organic processes, and materials to convey the idea of nostalgia and the connection between “place” and “memory”. She aims to explore collective trauma, how it’s inherited across generations, and its personal impact nowadays.

The presented work, created during the bursary, is the result of experiments with post-printing techniques such as toning and drawing, and exploration of new alternative ways of photo printing — lithography. 

Grace Sharp

Grace Sharp is an artist from Newcastle Upon Tyne, currently working in a variety of media including intaglio printmaking. 

She centrally muses upon ideas of the memory image; the image created in the mind’s eye, enveloped by the tonality of the passing of time. In her etching works these themes are explored by beginning with ‘real’ objects of interest, arranging them into a sculptural form in a still life image, the image is transferred onto an etching plate, where it then goes through a series of states, making strange an otherwise ordinary object.

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