5 Artists who have influenced my work as a Lino Printmaker
From a very young age, I fell in love with art - initially in the sense that I loved to create it. I loved to paint, draw, print, make a wonderful mess with pretty much any material I could get my hands on.
I remember first feeling a sense of ‘success’ in art when my primary teacher, Mr Biggin, set up a still life table and could not stop telling everyone how amazing my drawing of a flower was. That experience has never left me, although my parents and I are baffled as to where that sketch (lovingly framed and displayed) has gone. It almost doesn’t matter because the feeling has always stayed with me - that feeling of pride and of bring joy to others with something that I made.
As I progress through school, I became more aware of famous artists (all dead of course) but the scale of things that I saw on school trips to galleries and the way these creative should were revered stunned me. Still, it was a hobby and I never considered that I would make a career out of it because ‘art ids only worth something after they’re dead.’ This is a phrase I heard from many adults, presumably in an attempt to help ,e understand it wasn't;t a proper job and not get my hopes up too high that they would be shattered.
There are a few early gallery experiences that I recall, including a day trip to London galleries with college - my effervescent and eccentric tutor Bev leading the way never lacking energy and passion. I grew up not far from Liverpool so I was aware of the Tate Gallery from a young age,. Having said that, it didn't;t feel like a building I could enter, we just saw it when we visited the fudge shop on the docks. In high school, however, I finally made it through the rotating doors. I was in total awe - the scale of the place, the variety of art, not just in frames but also sculpture, projects and much more, and the fact that some of these people were STILL ALIVE!!!! On that trip, I discovered the joy of an art postcard, collecting a little bit of the creative genius to take home.
Some artists have stuck with me more than others…
Gustav Klimt
I became aware of Klimt win high school but was more influenced in college when I did a project on portraiture. I was struck bu how he combined these almost angelic facial features in glowing realism with luxurious patterns and metallics on the fabrics, the latter being completely flat in appearance and creating a stark contrast. I had never seen anything like it and it felt like he was breaking all the rules of the stuffy classical portraits that I’d seen in stately homes and old museums. It was refreshing and opulent with a fun twist.
In truth, I was more interested in the pattern. The portrait to me felt more like the frame that the pattern lay on and the realism against the freer creativity and graphic elements felt so lovely.
Now, I use linocut methods but I don’t concern myself with whether I am using them the traditional ways because some of my favousirtie creatives are rule breakers anyway. We’re not here to all follow the same path.
Henri Matisse
I hadn’t fully appreciated the impact of Matisse’s work until that college trip to London when I saw some of his blue figure cut outs. They stretch across the majority of the wall and you’d have to have removed the roof of our house to have had a chance at hanging it. It blew my mind.
More recently, we took a family trip to London and saw his Snail cut out. 286.4 x 287 cm in size and created in hand painted papers that were then cut arranged and stuck down it has such a childlike quality with immense impact. I sat in front of it for ages soaking up the vibrant colour and pure joy of it. He apparently created it in 1953 while bed bound so he had some help - imagine still thinking on that scale when you can’t even get out of bed!
Picasso said "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."
It seems to me that Matisse managed to retain the child within him as his work contains such imagination and abstraction. It’s the world as he saw it and that’s what I take away from him.
Constantin Brancusi
Brancusi was an artist I discovered while travelling in America in 2004 after working at a summer camp. New York itself was fascinating - busy and full of life. As I stepped into The Guggenheim (having only ever seen it on Men in Black) I was struck by how different it was to the architecture of most galleries and how wonderful it was that one continuous floor flowed up in a spiral. I spent hours exploring the sleek sculptures with no preconceptions of need to explain them away. I’ve never been one for needing to find out why an artist made something, I just love the respond to it in my pwn way first.
One of the things I loved about all of his pieces was that they seemingly effortlessly portrayed emotions and relationships through body language despite the fact that there was no movement. They also had a quality of African masks, simplified featured and an angularness to some of the features that contrasted against the smooth curves of the outer face and body forms. He had the skill to show so much without overloading it with detail.
Bridget Riley
Bridget Riley is a powerhouse of colour and pattern. My college art tutor introduced me to her and I later explored her work further when completing my degree. It was refreshing to find a female artist who was held in such high esteem and who was still alive. Hoorah!
Op Art became a mild obsession for a time during my degree studies. The coming together of art, science and maths fascinated me. I guess I hadn’t really seen the connections between these worlds before but I loved that they were manifested in something grand and feminine, that the worked played with your sense and how you felt in the space you held. It was magical.
This only served to build more on my fascination with pattern and shape. These elements creep into my work in a softer sense. I construct compositions that feel balanced and graphic rather than aiming for too much realism. My colours focus on emotional connection much like that of Riley’s although she uses black and white more than I have ever felt motivated to.
Sarah Graham
There are 2 Sarah Graham’s in my home. The first was our wedding gift, purchased for us with contributions from friends and family. ‘Saucy Sundae’ hangs in our dining room and brings joy on a daily basis. My husband and I fell in love with it vowing that we would one day have sundae Sundays when we owned a house. Unfortunately, I can no longer eat ice cream but the nostalgia of how special it was to eat a totally indulgent treat like that as a child continues to make me smile and the vibrancy of the piece sings in what is quite a shady room.
The other piece I have is called Love Birds. As soon as I saw it, happy memories of the budgies we had as children came flooding back to me. I could almost hear them chirping next to the phone table. Why they lived there where they could disrupt each and every phone call is beyond me but I loved them.
While I don’t like creating hyper realistic paintings myself, I am awed by the way Sarah captures the world and was lucky enough to work on the Samarivans project with her to raise money for Samaritans. I love how raw and honest she is about her own mental health journey and that inspired me to open up about my own. Art can be such an incredible tool for connecting to the core of who you are and what you love.
While my influences have been varied in their subject matter, they have all had one thing in common - a love of colour!
You can see more of my colourful work here.
