Hard Ground Etching Taster

"I am an artist and a printmaker living and working in the North East of England. I studied printmaking during a degree in Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan university and during a MA, also in Fine Art, at UCLan (University of Central Lancashire).

In my work I try to capture the essence of what it truly feels like to stand in a particular landscape, be it watching the endless changing of a shoreline as the sea ebbs and flows or be it standing surrounded by trees in the middle of a forest. Because I try to capture the felt experience of a space, I often mix photographic and hand drawn elements to move an image away from being just documentative.

There is often a photographic element to my work, however, I see myself first and foremost as a printmaker. I think this is mostly because I find the ritual of printmaking processes allows me to think creatively as well as enabling me to best express my experience of a landscape. It is sketches and photographs, taken on walks, that form the foundation of my prints. Creating the final print often means changing these proprietary sketches and photographs, which leads to results that are never wholly expected and always a pleasant surprise. I would say that it is this element of the unexpected that keeps many printmakers enthralled. I know it does me"