Printmaking has always been at the core of my practice, having done 3 years of it at Elam at the University of Auckland for my undergraduate degree I constantly find myself implementing process elements of printmaking into my work be it my paintings, ceramics or wall installations.
Having stepped back from making my wood cut edition prints for a couple of years in order to focus on my painting and ceramics while living in London, I was looking forward to getting back to creating new prints and adding a collection of new works to my portfolio. While at my Tannery Arts studio in Elephant and Castle I designed a series of three new images, all made with hand painted backgrounds with a final layer of silk screen print.
The first step was making three free-hand drawn ink line drawings of the images I wanted to transfer to silk screens for printing. I had recently completed a commission for a client in New Zealand of a bouquet of flowers with a lobster - and I really loved the resulting image so decided to develop my screen print series from this original commission.
I wanted to make reference to two elements which reminded me of New Zealand, but not overtly. The iconic NZ crayfish and NZ Celmisia (or Mt Cook Daisy) were chosen as they are a connective references to places like the Coromandel in the North Island and Mackenzie Country in the South Island. Layered over the colours which are in the London city spray painted and acrylic wash background. A hybrid of references, biographical in a sense.
The resulting series is comprised of three works - one large work with a bouquet of flowers and a lobster and two smaller works - each series a small edition of 30 only.
For available prints please chick here.