smiths row series: to start a conversation across a crowded room: contemporary british printmaking
DESCRIPTION
Smiths Row Series are publications available online which aim to extend conversations around Smiths Row's exhibition programmeTRANSCRIPT
VOL. 2
Beyond the Beyond, Tim Phillips, 2012
TO START A CONVERSATION ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM:
CONTEMPORARY BRITISH PRINTMAKING
20 September – 1 November 2014
Component Cube 1, 2013 & Component Cube 2, 2014, Sophie Smallhorn
Fotoecken, 2012, Sarah Brigland
TO START A CONVERSATION ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM:
CONTEMPORARY BRITISH PRINTMAKING
Katy Binks / Adam Bridgland / Sarah
Bridgland / Fiona Hepburn / Tim Phillips /
Sophie Smallhorn / Katsu Yuasa
To Start a Conversation Across a Crowded
Room brings together seven artist
printmakers whose work highlights the
potency of print and printmaking techniques
within contemporary art today.
Whilst previous generations established
printmaking as a primary means of
expression akin to painting or sculpture,
these artists challenge the perception of
distinct mediums with fixed processes
through experimental and interdisciplinary
approaches. Through diverse use of
material and processes which include
screen-printing, paper and wood cut,
through to large-scale installation, the works
display a shared interest in sculptural,
physical and three dimensional elements
and possibilities within contemporary
printmaking. Together, the works reflect
upon the unique breadth of printmaking,
examining both how it informs and is
informed by other practices and disciplines.
Katsu Yuasa draws on the heritage of
printmaking in his highly detailed wood-cuts.
Inverting the historical narrative of
printmaking, Katsu’s process begins with a
digital image- a photograph- which he then
produces through a labour-intensive
process of recreating by hand. Reminiscent
of Dutch Master paintings and symbolism
within the momento mori tradition, the
works have a nostalgic presence.
Repetition and precision are also defining
characteristics of Fiona Hepburn’s practice.
Her hand-crafted paper constructions
employ several layers of screen-printing to
achieve their delicate combinations of
colour and form inspired by the natural
world.
Inquiries into colour, volume and
proportion lie at the centre of Sophie
Smallhorn’s sculptural works, mono and
screen prints. Highly resolved in their
formal compositions and finish, Sophie’s
varied practice is suggestive of printmaking
both as an initial test for an idea as well as
the means for full realisation. Overlays of
colour are also evident in Sarah Bridgland’s
works comprising of bolsa wood and paint.
These works mark a departure from her
intricate pop-up paper sculptures created
from found books and other discarded
items
Katy Bink’s bold, site-specific commission
comprising digitally printed material and
vinyl transforms the back of the gallery
space. This work continues her interest in
geometric lines and graphic forms and their
ability to transform space, affecting our
perceptions and experiences of it. Similarly
to Katy, Tim Phillip’s sculpture also
foregrounds how digital printing can
provide new tools for experimentation
within a broader contemporary art practice.
Adam Bridgland’s mixed media installation
Yo-Yo uses screen printing to reinvest life
and a playfulness into an abandoned cooper
wire spool. Sited in part outside of the
gallery, it serves to remind us of the
ubiquity of print within our everyday
experiences: a fact often overlooked or
under-appreciated.
A unique series of risograph editions
featuring the work of the exhibiting artists
accompanies the exhibition. Smiths Row
Series II, our second online exhibition
catalogue, will extend conversations around
the exhibition and is available online.
To Start A Conversation Across a
Crowded Room is co-curated by artist
printmaker Adam Bridgland.
With thanks to TAG Fine Arts and Patrick
Heide Contemporary Art.
EVENTS
EXHIBITION TOUR & BRUNCH
Saturday 4 October, 10.30 – 11.30 am / Free
Join co-curators Natalie Pace and Adam Bridgland for an informal tour of the exhibition
followed by coffee and croissants.
SMITHS ROW SALON: IN-CONVERSATION
Wednesday 8 October, 6 – 8 pm | £4 / £3 concessions / Free for Smiths Row Supporters Gill Saunders (Senior Curator, Prints, V&A London) and artist printmaker Adam Bridgland will
be in conversation about the ideas explored in the exhibition.
CUT AND CONSTRUCT! FAMILY-FRIENDLY WORKSHOP LED BY
ARTIST SARAH BRIDGLAND Saturday 18 October; 10 - 11 am & 2 – 3 pm / £3 per person.
Come and create your own sculptural paper collage and have a go at printing with stamps. Cut
and Construct! will explore geometric shape and form. Suitable for families with children aged
5-9 years.
Untitled, Katy Binks, commissioned
by Smiths Row, 2014
Yo-Yo (detail), Adam Bridgland, 2014
IN CONVERSATION
On contemporary printmaking
Fiona Hepburn: Printmaking has become much more accessible
in the past few years. It is now a central part of
many artists’s practice. Printmaking and its
traditions still remain at the heart of my own
work, and I am excited about how artists are
using ‘print’ in new ways, testing the boundaries
of the traditional techniques, and exploring the
possibilities of new technologies.
I come from a traditional Printmaking
background, and the process of carving and
etching a surface is in itself is a very sculptural
one, and the idea of transferring that feeling of
tactility to making the work comes quite
naturally. I like the fact that I can make my prints
sculptural, reflecting the physical properties of
making a block, and giving a sense of dimension
to a print, something which is sometimes lost
on a flat piece of paper.
Printmaking is a very important part of my
practice. My work tends to end up as a one off
piece of work, although the process of
producing a multiple still remains, as I print the
small shapes to cut and construct with.
Adam Bridgland: Printmaking is the most relevant of all the major
artistic mediums. Whether we are aware or
not, print surrounds us in our everyday,
particularly in the advertising and publications
that dominate our landscape and shape our
lifestyles.
Print has always been used to necessitate the
multiple reproduction of information. This leads
to power and knowledge, to develop or change
in opinion. For me, this is what makes it so
exciting and I enjoy how artists and designers
respond to this. There is such a breadth to
contemporary print as it encompasses both the
traditional and the new technology of digital
media. Within the exhibition I wanted to
present this marriage, displaying how both old
and new meet.
All art work should weigh heavy on how the
viewer engages and feels about the work. Art
like so many other forms of escape is so
objective so why close opinions on huge parts
of it. As there are so many elements to
printmaking it is easier to welcome other
creative forms such as design and fashion for
example. With this print then moves forward,
taking with it new forms and ideas that present
the viewer with something exciting, hybrids for
the next generation of practitioners.
Print also allows the blurring of the artistic
mediums. I am not a believer that a work is
labelled as fine art if it presented in a certain
way or particular space. A great album cover or
book sleeve has as much relevance as a piece
of art placed within a white cube. Throughout
my development as an artist I have been equally
delighted to create work to display in a gallery
as well as create art works for records, books,
magazine and printed fabrics as they all have a
weight that can be presented to the viewer,
Sophie Smallhorn: What I love about screen printing is the ability
to play with colour in a very playful and
immediate way. I enjoy the chance to work
through ideas quickly and fearlessly and to make
mistakes that can be disregarded and learnt
from. The process of making my three
dimensional pieces is fairly long, from
conception to fabrication and then to colour
but the immediacy of printmaking is a perfect
relief from this.
Installation Image, Smiths Row, 2014
The Pier, Sarah Bridgland, 2012
Installation Image, Smiths Row, 2014
SMITHS ROW SOUNDTRACK
Tim Phillips on the relationship between music
and his process
I have always loved hip hop music, and I was
always beguiled by the thought of ingenious
musicians/rappers in the ghettos of America
making incredible records in the 80's seemingly
out of thin air. It was only later in life, when I
started making music myself, that I came to see
that the music I loved was made by sampling -
splicing and rearranging old records from the
60's and 70's, and extracting parts of drums and
other instruments into new rhythms and
arrangements. This to me has interesting
parallels with printmaking and my own artistic
practise.
Reconfiguring the detritus from advertising, hair
commercials, museum arrangements, car show
rooms, and shop displays- my work has a similar
sense of sampling and splicing. Artists have
always reconfigured elements of their
environments into new readings of the familiar
and everyday. Similarly, It is interesting how out
of a lack of money to buy instruments, the early
pioneers of hip hop made incredible new
sounds by the limitations and familiar sounds of
their environment, and used sampling machines
to arrange small clips of their parents old
blues/jazz/funk records into new, experimental
songs, often unrecognisable from the original
records drum stabs or bass lines.
In this same way, print has always dealt with the
idea of mechanical intermediaries, processing a
mark on a plate or screen into often new and
unfamiliar ways. The idea of the multiple and
the machine often creates something very
interesting from the most simple of marks and
form the basis of my use of the computer to
form artificial renderings of crystals and stones
from simple parameters of light and refraction
to create something widely exaggerated from
the natural world. Like the drum breaks used in
hip hop, spliced from drum sections of old funk
records, there is the trace of something man
made , but processed through the machine,
something is added, an exaggerated 'crunch' to
the sound which is at once human and
mechanised.
Artist Song Name Chosen by
Billy Cobham Heather Tim Phillips
Giorgio Moroder Leopard Tree Dream Tim Phillips
Teenage Fanclub Can't Feel My Soul Adam Bridgland
Wilco Company In My Back Adam Bridgland
Yellow Ostrich Here Today Adam Bridgland
LCD Soundsystem All My Friends Adam Bridgland
The War on Drugs Red Eyes Sarah Bridgland
Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending Sarah Bridgland
Super Furry Animals Northern Lites Sarah Bridgland
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds The Ship Song Natalie Pace
My Panda Shall Fly & Adventure
Elephant
Opening Brace Katy Binks
The Busy Twist Labadi Warrior Katy Binks
Tim Phillips Soundtrack Choices
'Heather' by Billy Cobham
An amazing slow building synth, accompanies a
beautifully melodic jazz standard. This was used
to great effect in the hip hop record '93 till
infinity' by Souls of Mischief. They sped up the
intro and created an amazing rhythmic
arrangement from something that originally
sounded like a swelling sea. It is amazing how
the glockenspiel sounds sped up on the
reconfigured record.
'Leopard Tree Dream' by Giorgio Moroder
This old record from the soundtrack to terrible
80's teen flick 'The Cat People' was used by
hip hop producer El-P in the highly
experimental band 'Cannibal Ox.' Moroder is
famous to have said that most dance music
copied his recipe for electronic bass lines from
the 70's onwards, and it is interesting how his
influence stretched far beyond the discos. This
is something dug from the OST archives, and
looped to produce such an amazing,
experimental, and futuristic sounding track for
this highly original group of musicians from New
York
Installation Image, Smiths Row, 2014
Smiths Row is committed to providing artists and makers with the opportunity to produce new work
and offering visitors the ability to enjoy and support contemporary art and craft
To accompany To Start A Conversation Across A Crowded Room: Contemporary British Printmaking,
we invited each artist to produce a new risograph print.
Left to Right:
Untitled, Katy Binks
Vorticella, Fiona Hepburn
Yo-Yo, Adam Bridgland
Crowd, Sophie Smallhorn
The Park, Sarah Bridgland
Resonance, Katsu Yuasa,
Parabens, Tim Phillips
All editions:
£50 unframed each, £95 framed
Full set of seven: £300
Risograph on Mohawk 270 gsm paper
42 x 29.7 cm
Edition of 30
Please contact the gallery for information.
SMITHS ROW SERIES are publications available online which aim to extend conversations around
our exhibition programme.
Smiths Row would like to thank the following
for their help and contributions to the making of
‘To Start a Conversation Across a Crowded Room: Contemporary British Printmaking’:
Adam Bridgland
Katy Binks
Sarah Bridgland
Fiona Hepburn
Tim Phillips
Sophie Smallhorn
Katsu Yuasa
Patrick Heide Contemporary Art
TAG Fine Arts
Niki Braithwaite
All of the staff and interns at Smiths Row
Smiths Row The Market Cross
Cornhill
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk
IP33 1BT
+44 (0)1284 762081
www.smithsrow.org