So, five
practitioners who inspire me...
Paul
Catherall has cropped up on this blog before. His London-centric linocuts are
some of the most impressive I’ve ever seen.
Some of his
work is commissioned by Transport for London. They obviously want to revisit
the vibe of the 1920’s and 30’s
How to
emulate him? He told me that he assembles some of his images like a jigsaw.
I’ve tried this, and as yet I can’t get a clean, straight cut. And my cutting
and printing skills need improving.
My first
task is to start doing multicoloured images. I’m not ready for reduction cuts
yet – the finality of destroying the image puts me off. Yet multi – block
prints require a lot more cutting; one of the artists spoke to at Skipton sticks to reductions because she can’t face
the effort of multiple blocks.
Gail
Brodholt is another linocut artist and
printmaker, based in London. Like Paul
Catherall, her images are London – orientated. Much of her work depicts the
Underground.
Her work is ‘concerned with journeys, both actual and
temporal, providing an outsider’s narrative on present day London which is
tinged with a certain nostalgia for the railways and tube trains.’ A nostalgia
I share - bring back railway carriages with compartments! The London thing is
difficult to duplicate, though. Manchester doesn’t have the same mystique.
Again, more carving and printing practice required.
Barry
Bulsara is a graphic designer and printmaker based in Leicester. He produces
screenprints of contemporary images – the Tardis, Star Wars, Malcolm Tucker
from The Thick Of It. I would have thought he’d have copyright issues, but he says it's not a problem. The images are beautiful and humorous.
I’ve been
hitting the print room quite a lot recently, enough to realise I need a lot
more practice. As with lino, there’s a knack to translating what the image
looks like into what the print will look like. A knack I haven’t acquired yet.
Anthony
Burrill is a graphic artist, printmaker and designer. He is keen on traditional
techniques - ‘The integrity lent
to the process of image-making by hand-made methods is essential to his
practice across all media — from print, to screen-based, to three-dimensional
applications’. This chimes with my obsession with old machinery and my recently
– acquired love of making things.
His posters are deceptively plain, but really
shout their message out. Some of them are printed from woodblock, a style I’d
like to try. Bet it’s pricey, though.
Bit of a
theme so far, eh? All printmakers. Well, the fifth one ain’t.
Advertising
agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty are responsible for the Levis ads that brought us
Nick Kamen in his boxers, Vorsprung durch technik becoming synonymous with
Audi, and Sta-Prest’s Flat Eric. The firm has twice been agency of the year at
the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and twice won the
Queen’s Award for Export. Hegarty’s book is in the college library, and it’s
full of insights into the creative process. These people know what they’re
doing.
I’m drawn
to advertising by the whole puppet-master thing. Making people act one way
rather than another.
How to get
there? Have more ideas. Study people, and what they want.
