North Wales Print Fair 2023

“I’m a multidisciplinary designer and printmaker, specialising in risograph printing. I create colourful eco-conscious work from my home studio which houses a MZ770e risograph printer named “Maz”. 

I create a wide range of risograph prints, stationery, greetings cards, washi tape, calendars, screen printed tote bags and paper goods. My work is greatly inspired by architecture, geometry, typography and pattern. 

Within everything I create I’m incredibly environmentally conscious and aim to ensure my work has as minimal impact on the planet as possible through the selection of materials and processes.”

Using oil based printmaking inks I build up images in layers, using stencils cut from coated card to define edges. The ink is applied using ‘soft’ (Durathene) rollers.

The stencils are also used as a guide to removing ink when wiping or rubbing back to the picture surface.

Detail is produced by drawing onto card shapes (the inside section of the stencil).These are inked up and printed on top of the stencilled areas. I also draw directly onto the paper surface during the print process.

I rarely use a printing press, preferring to use hand pressure or a light use of a roller on the back of the printing plates. Meticulously hand printed, each image will have variations in colour.

Most prints are one-off (unique), others are produced as a small numbered series.

My colourful and abstract forms originate from a Victorian anatomy image of the brain, intrigued in its visual image and methods of working as a dyslexic. Exploration of materials and relationships between surface and object, colour, layers, and patterns drive the process. Creating unique items to adorn walls or ears.

I’m a visual artist and maker from Bethesda, North Wales, and a member of Oriel CARN in Caernarfon, an artist-led network and gallery. Recently I won an honorary Eirian Llwyd Memorial Award for my screen-print artworks. The award supported my place on the “Introduction to printmaking” course at the Regional Print Centre, Wrexham, and allowed the purchase of art materials and screens to further my practice.

Working from my home studio on the Essex/Suffolk border, I create linocut artwork inspired by the spirit of the natural world and the history and story of the landscape. I specialise in the ‘reduction’ method of printing multiple colour layers to create my images but also produce single layer black and white prints.

I strive to create pieces with depth and atmosphere, developing techniques to capture light, distance and detail, pushing the boundaries of what is expected from lino printing. Producing work that evokes and captures our emotional connection with our landscape I hope to draw the viewer in so that they can imagine being there and feel the atmosphere of the moment.

Charlotte is drawn to the natural world around her- Her work acknowledges the rhythms and cycles found in the natural world and the dynamic beauty found in the landscape.

Charlotte works primarily with lino and woodcut and the printmaking process itself greatly influences her work with each element bringing its own exciting opportunities-most notably the unpredictable results that can be achieved through building layers, pattern and texture within her prints.

Ellie Cliftlands is a Shropshire-based, Welsh-born printmaker, specialising in wood engraving.

Ellie initially began to experiment with woodcut whilst at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee but it was during her MA at the Cambridge School of Art that her work became increasingly detailed, as she explored engraving as a means of book illustration. Whilst there, Ellie was lucky enough to be introduced by her tutor to John Lawrence, who previously had been a lecturer at CSA. Ellie was a recipient of a Society of Wood Engravers’ Rawlinson Bequest grant for her final MA project, an illustrated edition of the Grimm tale, The Juniper Tree.

Elly is an illustrator and animator in North Wales. Her work involves drawing, digital and Lino print, animation, making objects and telling stories. She loves to include colour, people, creatures, and things that are both magical and mundane in her work. She regularly teaches and runs animation and illustration workshops.

For me print is not merely a means of reproduction but is in itself a hugely creative and exciting process.  The work is a collection of different printmaking processes used both traditionally but more recently in playful combinations of process and image, these also include elements of collage and chine colle making each of these prints individual.

The themes of the work are treated in a similar way, observations and thoughts are layered to create different levels of meanings.  The work documents the day to day, events, people, nature and things that are common to us all however the characters that emerge from these evoke a more sinister world of imagination and fiction.

I work across several techniques, primarily collagraph and etching. I often combine printed surfaces and sections of printing plates into print collage and am currently experimenting with layered etchings. Ideas generated during printing sometimes result in mixed media book art forms.

My work is mostly abstract, exploring shape, colour and texture of weathered surfaces found on the North Wales shoreline or in ancient manmade landscapes. ‘Imaginary Archaeology’ is a current theme.

Iain Perry creates deeply layered, colour saturated, abstract screen prints. 

The image generation is a slow process of experimentation, of trial and error; collecting imagery, developing patterns and overlaying all the different elements until new and intriguing relationships emerge. The results are brightly lit beacons of balearic zen shining out amidst a visual, digital landscape that is in constant upheaval, upgraded and updated daily. 

Iain’s work borrows language from other art forms, film and photography, poetry, electronic music and rave culture – amalgamating, mixing and remixing, offering up familiar signs and signifiers but now refracted and reflected, illusive and allusive, all lightly seasoned with a slightly understated degree of subversion. Layers of fragmented iconography and geometry coalesce on the paper, like motes of dust trapped in a beam of light teasing us with a cheeky glimpse of a much bigger gestalt. 

The resulting collection is a series of paeans to pigment, a psychedelic hallelujah to the handmade and handprinted, colour and tone poems that are a tiny bit joyful. 

I am continually drawn to rich layers of human history within the built environment, visiting towns and cities alongside more rural locations.

Using silkscreen, linocut and blind embossing I distill memories of places visited and objects within them. Colour plays a significant role, whether subtle or vibrant. Using a limited palette or leaving areas untouched, I explore space and mood within images. Surfaces of my screenprints show layers of solid and transparent elements.

In contrast, my intricately carved blind embossed prints are devoid of colour, whereby the paper plays a significant role, revealing form and texture through shadow and light.

I specialise in linocut and screenprint, sometimes mixing the two techniques, and use fairly bold colours and imagery in my compositions. My subjects range from landscapes to UK wildlife to surreal donkey compositions and large abstract pieces.

The content of images comes from direct observation, recorded first in sketchbooks.

People, artefacts, sculpture, art history, the bizarre, and horses all feature in this collection ofresource material.

My underlying theme is “truth being stranger than fiction”. The works aim to entertain and intrigue. Editions are produced in my Cheshire studio.

Etching is an ideal technique for someone like me whose primary medium is drawing. Line quality is changed by the printmaking process, often giving more impact to tonal areas than that achieved in drawings on paper. It is an excellent medium for linear images and thus a sympathetic vehicle for drawing.

Linocuts and monoprints are also produced. Here flat colour can be used as opposed to the more subtle tints associated with etching.

LocalHotelParking is a surrealist hand cut collage and embroidery artist based in Manchester, She is inspired by conspiracy, the sound of Hawaiian guitar and old ladies in charity shops. LocalHotelParkings work is fun, vibrant and eye-catching; capturing your imagination and dreamscapes with her surrealist tongue in cheek humour.

Liz Toole is a printmaker who has a genuine love of birds. 

Working and traveling in Africa has informed and inspired Liz’s work, this is where she fell in love with nature, mainly birds, following her ceramics degree. 

Liz uses birds to tell a story which is usually something that has happened in her life, she aims to create a positive story. 

All of Liz’s screen prints and linocuts are designed and hand printed by her using specialized printmaking papers. 

Colour plays a huge part in Liz’s work, she has been known to test print 60 different colour combinations for a two colour screenprint, waiting for that eureka moment. 

Liz’s love of printmaking is because she is continually learning, this keeps it exciting and fresh. Liz also hand prints a range of greeting cards and eco-friendly notebooks. 

Collagraph’s have become a firm favourite of mine as I feel a quality akin to charcoal drawing in it, a tactility, a freedom in the mark making. I work by Tearing at the layers which result in beautiful tonal depths, punctuate with sharp lines and staccato dots. I’m increasingly blind embossing my paper with wood cuts before printing adding a subtle second narrative to the work caught on a second glance or closer inspection asking the viewer to come in closer.  My work which can be varied in subject matter often have a common narrative of nostalgia and melancholy.

I live in a village on the bank of the river Conwy overlooking the Carneddau mountains. I was a primary school teacher for 34 years but since retiring I now have more time for developing my Alternative Photography technique. My passion is Victorian photographic processes namely Cyanotype (John Herschel 1842) and Lumen prints (Henry Fox Talbot). My practice is definitely driven by an innate curiosity and wonder. Experimenting with the processes themselves I have created a technique using darkroom paper, cyanotype solution and various household ingredients to produce original one-off pieces of work. I like to use natural plant materials, Victorian illustrations and my own photographs in my work. I use expired darkroom papers each individual type adding to the overall effect.

I’m an illustrator and printmaker based in North Wales and a member of the Regional Print Center.

I create pop art influenced by 70s comics, music, horror, folk stories, beer and wizards.

All of my work is hand drawn and hand printed based on my original artwork. I create prints, posters, notepads, stickers, badges, beet mats, t-shirts and other goods.

My name is Matthew Storrow and I am an illustrator and printmaker based in the Baltic Quarter in Liverpool. I studied architecture at university before becoming an illustrator and setting up Mockup Goods Co. as a product based illustration studio.

This background in architecture still influences my work as a lot of my prints are inspired by old technical drawing manuals and isometric illustration.

I’ve always been obsessed with old matchbooks, pamphlets and print adverts which is why I love Risograph printing so much as the textures and colour offsets inherent in Risograph printing always gives the print the looks and feel of something that was printed 30-40 years ago.

I am a Welsh Printmaker from Gwynedd. I work in an original combination of monotype and chine collé, and also in linocut and abstract collagraph print media.

Travelling for inspiration and drawing from my observations, I direct my work as a poetic narrative of the landscapes I pass through. Much of my work derives from sketches from life. Through my monotype and chine collé printmaking process, I abstract this source material. I look under the surface, focusing on the phenomena of light, the elements and the effects of the passage of time, dissecting the landscapes at their seams, extracting colour and form, and re-assembling them into a vision beyond the physical.

OR8DESIGN is Owen Findley, designing and hand screenprinting from his studio in Leeds, West Yorkshire. A contemporary take on the landscape print, Owen’s work has been described as ‘minimalist wanderlust’. Embracing negative space and bold, flowing shapes, he draws the viewer in and takes them on an adventure through the landscape. His minimal prints focus less on the detail and more on capturing the emotion of a place; hazy memories of childhood visits and fleeting moments from favourite holidays. This gives his prints a calm, dream-like feel. 

The nature of screenprinting helped to inform the signature OR8DESIGN style, using the fewest colours for the greatest impact. Even after 10 years of printing, the delight of lifting the screen on the final colour and seeing that the print has been a success has never gone away for Owen.

Owen is passionate about everyone being able to own and enjoy hand-made art and so his work is printed as open-editions and priced affordably. 

I am an artist and linocut printmaker based in Snowdonia, North West Wales. I have sketched, drawn and painted all my life but it wasn’t until five years ago when I discovered linocut printing that I found the medium that totally and completely suited me. 

The different elements of breaking the image down into its component parts, precise carving and then ink application, a layer at a time, each image slightly different to the last, is magical to me.

My name is Paula Payne. I started Arboretum Print Co almost by accident. I trained in fine art in Manchester. After a career in a design business, I retrained as a teacher of Art in secondary schools and have now been a full-time teacher for around 15 years. Arboretum Print Co began when I started printmaking in a studio I built in my garden and began to engage with my own practice.

I love to experiment with processes and colour. I like to use colour to create other moods and feelings. It can be calm serenity or pure joy. I love the quality of the unplanned marks and colour on my backgrounds against the flat solid colours of the print.

The work is composed of fragments from a variety of sources which make a composition employing narrative form. I work with photopolymer and drypoint etching, with elements of chine colle within the print.

My work is a celebration of the natural world and of special places. I use linocut, screen printing and other print techniques to create simple bold designs with limited colour palettes. 

Inspirations range from mid century design to nature tables, travel posters to fairy tales. Most images come from personal experience and wildlife sightings, which seems to key into other peoples’ connection to places and to the natural world. 

My prints are evolving to mix printmaking techniques in one print.

Born in Wrexham in North Wales, Rhi graduated from the Design Communication department of the North Wales School of Art in 2013, and went on to study Inter-Disciplinary Printmaking at the Wroclaw School of Printmaking, Poland, where she was awarded her diploma in 2015.

Printmaking forms a large part of Rhi’s practice not only for the beauty and possibilities of the technique, but also for its inspiring role in the democratisation of the arts, with its possibilities for reproducing artworks for wider distribution. Serigraphy is Rhi’s preferred medium for the infinite possibilities it allows in the layering of colour and texture, she is drawn to the visibility of the ink on the page and the flatness of colour. It demonstrates a tactile alternative to the more commonly employed digital form.

Rhi’s work reacts to ideas of people, place, language and culture often taking the form of layered maps, prints, books, with a particular desire to capture and explore domestic traditions and ‘people’s history.’

Rhi states that “Geography is a huge factor in my practice; through my work I attempt to capture the essence of a place, or at least, of my experience of it. For this reason, travel and research are central to my work. I am interested in the way in which illustration and printed matter can bridge the divide between cultures and so my practice therefore often takes the form of illustrated books, maps and recipes, inspired by my own journeys and discoveries”.

Ruth makes original screenprints and collages from a studio near Bala, North Wales.

The prints are all made by hand, using Fabriano watercolour paper. This surface has a silk-like quality and holds the colour beautifully. It’s also acid free, which means it doesn’t fade or discolour.

Each design is made in a small edition. The prints are individually numbered and signed. Once an edition is sold out, Ruth adapts some of the images for her range of greetings cards.

Ruth trained as a textile designer in Liverpool and Birmingham, after which she worked as a freelance designer and illustrator. Clients have included Ikea, Sainsbury’s, Waterstones and Marks and Spencer. She has worked extensively with Tate, writing and illustrating 3 children’s books and a designing a range of toys, clothes and tableware.

Her prints focus on plants, gardens and animals with a nod to mid-century design. There is a strong illustrative style, with bold colours in contrasting layers.

SANS Studio is run by printmaker Emily Gerrard. 

At the studio you will find a mix of Pop Art and Punk inspired work, fuelled by a love of vintage books, analogue photography, and old band merchandise. Alongside this, the studio offers creative and commercial printing, working with other indies and small businesses. I source what I can locally and treat materials with care and passion; keeping everything I do both honest and affordable.

Screen printing lies at the heart of the studio, with designs combining a mixture of bold imagery and vintage graphics – pop art with a DIY twist! My products range from unique screen prints, hand processed and printed 35mm photographs, record sleeve notebooks, greetings cards, mixed media collage artworks, hand printed t-shirts and tote bags.

I am a printmaker from the Calder Valley in the West Riding of Yorkshire. My work is naturalistic, representational and rooted in the British Countryside, its landscape and wildlife. Although I don’t consider myself to be either a wildlife or landscape artist being happy to tackle anything I feel will make an interesting or challenging print.

Linocut, Wood Engraving and Mezzotint form the main focus of my work, all of equal importance to my practice. My linocuts are decorative with an emphasis on colour, pattern and composition. Mezzotint allows me to work in a more personal, expressive way to capture the mood and atmosphere of the subject. 

Tara explores and experiments with ‘ findings ‘ collecting parts. Often influenced by the environment she might find herself in. Screen printing is a brilliant process which allows for initial lines and marks to transform creating a collage of elements. She often develops a proof and a finished piece.

Producing work created from many parts of the original line, generating a collage of elements. Layering creates a way of illustrating patterns and redefining the value of line work. Making stencils and building images from the textured shapes, offering alternative interpretations of the original marks. Tara describes it as almost drawing with the screens.

My work is influenced by my love of the British countryside from my Shropshire roots growing up in a house nestled in the forest, time spent living close to nature in a caravan by a fisherman’s cottage, a year absorbing the wild beauty of Anglesey’s coastline to now – the wonderful Conwy valley in North Wales where I work happily in my garden studio.

I studied Visual Culture at Brighton University and have since explored many different art forms. As an artist I have always been drawn to the colour blue and its associations with nature and the infinite. I have also strived to capture light in my work so upon discovering the Cyanotype technique I was hooked by its many possibilities.

I use the old photographic process of Cyanotype invented by Sir John Herschel in 1841 to capture our delight and wonder in the intricacies of nature creating a unique range of blue and white homeware and gifts. A light sensitive solution is applied to various papers, hedgerow finds or/and negatives layered on then exposed to sunlight, the solution is then rinsed off and the paper dried, fixing the image in glorious blue tones.

Theresa Taylor is an artist-printmaker based in the north-west of England. She currently works out of her studio on the north-west coastline, also from her home studio on the edge of the Bowland Fells south of Lancaster. 

Her work is primarily ‘process led’  and she takes an experimental stance to her practice, taking her work into 3-D and casting etching plates in plaster and other materials at times. Although fundamentally abstract, there is a sense of the natural world in her work, gathering information on-site, including photographic material.

Very recently her work has been influenced by disused spaces, derelict and defunct. There is also a strong ‘human presence’, underpinned by psychoanalytic principles, having trained and worked as a psychotherapist (NHS) and an art therapist, for many years, between her degree and masters in Fine Art.

Vincent Patterson is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in the North West. Graduate of the University of Chester with an MA in Design. Patterson’s print work explores themes of lost narrative and abstracted fragments of memory.

Working across a range of print media including Screenprint, Risograph, Photography, Typography, and illustration his prints are as much a story of the process as the finished print. Utilising found and reappropriated imagery, collaged with rich textures and bold colours, the layering up of inks, collage, pencil, and oils by hand builds the rich surfaces to produce unique screen-printed monoprints.

His recent works echo a series of stolen cinematic moments from the French New Wave pumped and twisted on a bad trip with vivid neon colours. A series of papercut stencils hand-pulled through a silkscreen building beds of texture with narrative images overlayed on swirling sensual textures to create a series of interlinked one-off monoprints. The image fragments are distressed and sequenced to form individual frames of the story of the movie you never saw.