Print Matters: Ex Libris Collection Ex Libris Gallery
25/03 5pm - 7pm 26/03 10am - 5pm 27/03 10am - 5pm Works By: Peter Doig Alice Hawkins William Hogarth Dan Holdsworth
James Hutchinson Chad McCail John Kippin Eduardo Paolozzi
Vinca Petersen Kelly Richardson Marjolaine Ryley Sophie Lisa Smith
Curated by students of MA Art Museum and Gallery Studies
A M & G
STUDIES
25-27/03/2022
Print Matters: Ex Libris Collection Print Matters: Ex Libris Collection aims to showcase printmakers and printed works that reflect modernity. Some of the artworks are autobiographical and others are referential commentaries on modern life. The earliest work dates from 1734 and the latest, 2022; all are timely, displaying ideas of power, prestige, technological advancement, progressive ideologies, and temporality. Each theme aims to unpick one of these aspects of modernity and they question our understanding of the now. While some think of prints as mere reproductions of original paintings, prints are far more than just a copy of the original; they are an artistic re-creation by the printmaker, made possible through printing technology. The ingenuity with which the prints are made and the guarantee of quality has often led the way, and society has been both transformed and documented by the skilled crafts of professional printmakers. The work displayed in Print Matters: Ex Libris Collection has a wide range of print media. Each type of print has different processes involved. Since the use of woodblock printing in China circa 593 AD and the invention of the Gutenberg Press in 1440 AD, printing has been used by societies and individuals to spread ideas, to exchange goods, and to, quite literally, make money. Fast forward to the 21st century, 3D printers are now able to produce mechanical devices, medical aids, and even food. Traditionally in the United Kingdom, collections have been comprised of historic and art works. The Ex Libris Collection aims to reflect modern society and catalogue artworks that are timely. In doing so, the collection becomes a snapshot in space and time.
Print Matters: Ex Libris Collection is a project realised by the 2021–2022 cohort in Art Museum and Gallery Studies. The Ex Libris Collection is, at least thus far, a fictional collection of artworks based in a region of the country that has few public and even fewer private collections of contemporary art. Northeast England, and indeed all of England’s regions outside London, lack the well-resourced collections of contemporary art that France, Switzerland, Germany, and America have. A comparison between regional England and Germany is salutary. North Tyneside is twinned with another city-region of 250,000, Mönchengladbach, which is home to the astonishing Abteiberg Museum collection. Nearby Sunderland is twinned with Essen, which houses Museum Folkwang — the first modernist museum in all Europe. The need to imagine an entity like the Ex Libris Collection is pressing. It is the duty of the next generation of curators to imagine how things can be done differently, both here and internationally, where new museums are being built that will shape the future of art. Curators envisage how art can and should be made public: how artists can present their work in galleries and beyond. The fictional collection here offers one speculative answer as to how we might begin to make the art of our time more public, both on the wall and the printed page. Chad McCail’s work, for example, is free to download and print at home, is free to the 10,000 readers of The Crack magazine, and is shown here as gallery prints. The Ex Libris Collection acknowledges the achievements of its predecessors and peers nearby. The Laing Art Gallery has an extraordinarily varied collection and is currently exhibiting Dan Holdsworth’s work.
Masters 2021-22
Art Museum and Gallery Studies
The Hatton Gallery contains an extraordinary wealth of printed work, acquired with limited resources but exceptional initiative and independence of mind by successive generations of curators. It is overseen by Elizabeth Jacklin, who has exceptional expertise in modern and contemporary prints. To the south, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art and Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art’s collections both contain Chad McCail’s work. Hartlepool Art Gallery is exhibiting Alice Hawkins in March 2022. All these collecting institutions have much to be proud of — though their current resourcing means that none as yet have the international reach of Folkwang or Abteiberg.
Art Museum and Gallery Studies MA graduates work in institutions from the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal Collection to BALTIC and Newbridge Project. The course prepares students for professional life working with artists and artworks, providing insight into the complex, contentious issues that galleries and museums face. Staff have specialisms across the field of contemporary art — across community art practice and artist-run spaces; museum collections and exhibition practice; and public art and education policy. Art Museum and Gallery Studies graduates are asking the most urgent questions about what the future of art and art’s institutions should be. Written by Alistair Robinson Lecturer, Curating Contemporary Art
Picturing Power
Wall One For many artists, our social and political environments have become a key part in reconsidering the impacts of our surroundings. Peter Doig, John Kippin, and Chad McCail, who utilise a variety of printing processes, including inkjet, giclee print, and screenprint, together ask us to consider which institutions and rituals shape who we are. John Kippin captures the theme well in his series Romanitas where he documents the influence of Mussolini’s fascist architecture in Italy. Mussolini was pivotal in making Fascism a European-wide political movement during his dictatorship, as authoritarian populism was in the 2010s. The fascist style of these buildings was intended to invoke feelings of patriotism, imposing a new vision of power for modernity. The topic of political architecture — of whom it impacts — and its political strength remains important to authoritarian leaders. This has more recently been reflected in the United States when former President, Donald Trump, signed an executive order making overscaled and neoclassical architecture the preferred style for federal buildings in Washington. Through McCail’s work, we see those settled positions in relations to the financial system. Some of the figures are not always immediately available, and, sometimes, they are deliberately concealed. We are presented with symbolic figures, intended for us to discover an unrevealed meaning. In the meantime, they drive us to imagine actual historical events, and their effect on ‘how we relate to each other’ in our wider economy, and their positions in a hierarchy of power and influence. His work serves as propaganda. In McCail’s words, “My dilemma is always whether to make
something that inspires by suggesting what might be possible, or to make something which analyses what is actually happening or has led to the current situation in the hope that viewers will be informed and angered enough to change the way they act”. Making use of his own ‘visual language’, he can communicate with a broad public. Similarly, we see this presented in ‘Masqueraders’ by Peter Doig. In his own words, Doig remarks, “I try to create something questionable, using the power of imagery to draw on real events that may be difficult to put into words”. The process of transforming his source material often results in strange, other-worldly places, with just one or two people identifiable. He says, “I try to paint [someone] who is adrift — a man who is between worlds, between places”. In this way, power socially and politically can be visually articulated through bright colours and mysterious symbols, often only transferable when boundaries between real life and the uncanny are blurred. Written by Katie Sarah Carr, Sujin Son, Yuting Wang
Scottish artist Chad McCail has deliberately adopted a simplified, graphic style in the same vein as those of children’s books and comics. McCail’s work generally tells a story of ‘how we live’ by placing many words and pictures together in each frame. McCail asks himself how particular social groups can dominate others by commanding multiple forms of social power, including financial, cultural, and educational power. Since attending Goldsmiths’ College in London alongside many ‘young British artists’, McCail has consistently worked on how we can imagine and depict those social issues effectively to the public. McCail’s work is, in his own words, “art as visual communication”. He is ultimately concerned with communicating what makes us who we are and how we might change. He employs unique symbols as his own ‘visual code and language’ to describe the position of power and the change of the financial system. The simplified illustrations present the reality of social problems as clearly as possible. The immediacy of his graphic language is intended to grab our attention and gain our trust in exploring the social world we encounter. Ultimately, he believes that if people work together, we can change our unequal society for the better. His brand-new artwork ‘That was Then, and This is Now’ was developed in association with The Crack magazine, which is based in Newcastle upon Tyne, and was given an eight-page spread in its March 2022 issue. This exhibition is the first time the work has been exhibited. The Crack is available for free, like McCail’s work. McCail notes, “I have always been interested in finding ways to circulate my work.” He also mentions that “Making the work available for download seemed appropriate when the work existed
Chad McCail, 2022
That Was Then, This is Now
already as a digital file.” Print acts as a ‘democratic’ way of making art available to everyone, and his work can be downloaded for free from a QR code in the magazine and printed at home as posters.
McCail’s work is, fundamentally, storytelling. Since the 1990s he has created a set of unique symbols to describe the relative positions of power each of us occupy. Sometimes, the symbols are not clear, but the whole story is underpinned by the text and the colours. Indeed, many of the figures’ masks show us only very simple or unsophisticated expressions — precisely in order to stimulate our curiosity about what is hidden behind their masks.
However, the flow of the story as a whole is McCail’s first priority. The vivid, intense background colours unify the series, and set the tone. In McCail’s words, “the yellows are lively, and the violence unstable and sinister”. This work continues ideas he has been thinking about for several years in different ways. Across that time, in his observation, the groups in the West who had power have still stayed in positions of power. On the other hand, those who were the lowestpaid a generation ago remain the lowest paid. Few of us are able to recognise the depth of these problems directly; fewer still of us know how to address them. McCail’s graphic, diagrammatic simplification of society is intended to awaken us to what it really is. The series is very much seen from the perspective of Britain’s role in the post-war economic order. McCail allows us to imagine the forces and processes that define Britain as a society. Written by By Sujin Son
Peter Doig, 2006
Masqueraders Peter Doig is unarguably one of most renowned figurative painters in the world. He was born in Edinburgh, grew up in Canada, studied in London, and has lived in Trinidad since 2002. This print was made in 2006, after his move to the tropical island. When he first moved to London in 1979 to study at Wimbledon School of Art (then St. Martin’s School of Art), his subject became a form of ‘homesickness’ for Canada. His experimental approach to surface, texture, and colour made him one of the most creative painters of his generation, and Doig’s work marked the emergence of a new, poetic style of painting in the early 1990s. Doig draws on subjects both from his personal memory of his surroundings and photographic imagery. His subjects are transformed through a play of gesture, painterly texture, and brilliant colour such that his landscapes combine elements of memory and imagination, becoming intensely personal to him. Doig has said that he “tries to create something questionable in the picture, something that may be difficult to put into words.” The process of transforming his source material often results in strange, other-worldly places, with just one or two people identifiable. In his own words, “I try to paint [someone] who is adrift — a man who is between worlds, between places.” Doig’s screenprints are highly sought after, and he has produced prints throughout his career, partly to make his work more visible and partly to be able to experiment in a medium that is parallel to but very distinct to painting. Doig’s screenprints are typically on a much smaller scale than his paintings. Unlike on canvas, every detail can be registered at once and the image can be seen as a single readable surface. However, his screenprints cannot rely on
a play of exquisite surface textures in the way his paintings do; their flatness is more pronounced, so our eye does not wander around the various textures across the surface and cannot linger on the artist’s brushwork. ‘Masqueraders’ illuminates how Doig’s prints are often about creating effects of poetic colour and light, rather than the varied surface treatments his paintings rely on. Doig has used many different colours for grounds in his paintings, including cadmium orange, but, so far, he has only used bold pink once as the principal colour to set the tone of a painting. We see a white full moon over an almost festive colour, as if the event were a carnival or a wedding of ghosts, ghouls, or zombies. There is an unlikely contrast between the bright pink ground and the morbid figures. The zesty, cheerful colour counterbalances the eccentric or alarming Venetian-style masks the figures wear. It is as if the event were taking place on a tropical island where the light creates super-saturated colours. Perhaps it is as if the figures are emerging out of a dream or nightmare. In Doig’s world, everything, and indeed everyone, maintains a pleasingly unsettling mood. Here, even more than in his paintings, we seem to enter into the ‘inner world’ of the people he portrays, and step into ‘their’ imaginary world. Written by Yuting Wang
Romanitas
Captured from 2012, Kippin’s monochromatic inkjet images attest to the regime built by far-right nationalists under the founder of fascism in Europe, dictator Benito Mussolini. It is a deliberate display of the signs of political populism which can now be acknowledged among other countries in particular, America, Poland, Hungary, and even the United Kingdom. Kippin specifically photographs the buildings within the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR). The EUR zone was developed to commemorate fascist Italy in the 1930s, and it was maintained even after the fascist regime was defeated. Each of the buildings project what was intended to be the rebirth of the Roman Empire. They are sharp and imposing, embodying the authoritarian and masculine power of far-right ideology. The plan to demonstrate the regime’s strength to the rest of the world did not materialise; instead, the grandiose buildings were repurposed for conventional uses. Romanitas asks how buildings are important and what they say about our culture. It alights upon the idea that our surroundings are a part of what constructs our sensibilities and identities. In Kippin’s imagery, we see
John Kippin, 2013-16
John Kippin photographs and documents landscapes, addressing contemporary and political issues. His works are investigations, linking connections between society, identity, and built environments. As he remarks, “when making photographs of the social and economic landscape and environment I became very aware of the importance of buildings and what they say about our culture”. Romanitas reflects upon the fascist architecture in Rome and its importance within a living contemporary context.
the contrast between the large geometric structures and the ordinary human beings. They bear a resemblance to miniature statues purposefully positioned to exemplify the power of design. Nevertheless, the images show that daily life, children playing, people commuting, continues among the peculiar and numinous environment. The monochromatic approach employed by Kippin, “projects a sense and awareness of style — appropriate to the intention of making the buildings in the first place”. The piece captures a man and a woman getting married, elevated on a platform of steps. The picture taken outside of a church is dominated by the scale of the surroundings. Kippin describes that “the couple were very much a product of the cultural heritage that we all inherit. There is a beauty to high modernism that is seductive and stylish. They were beautiful — it was beautiful. Afterwards maybe not”. The work points out that buildings are inseparable from nature, humans, and the activity that happens around it. As he remarks, “I would like viewers to think about the impact of the visual and the complexity of visual framing” and “to question which aspects we might wish to value and those that we feel are problematic”. John Kippin’s career began in the 1980s, when his work began to gain attention, exhibiting widely across the UK in galleries such as the Laing Art Gallery and the Serpentine Gallery. His artwork has also been exhibited throughout Europe, America, and Asia. Kippin’s artwork is now represented in UK national collections, including the Arts Council Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, and British Council Collection. Written by Katie Sarah Carr
Mass Produced Ideas
Wall Two Technology and production techniques have often played a part in what we understand as modernity. Though each of these artworks is from a different century, the artists’ practices have each been shaped by technology. Printing technology may not be explicitly referenced in the works on display, but the mechanical process has informed the practice of each artist. Reproducibility and the iterative nature of printing technology has allowed each of the pieces to be improved upon, modified, and redistributed through time. Without printing technology, Hogarth’s cautionary tales would be limited to one owner, his ideas would have not taken root and not been so widely propagated. This version of ‘A Rake’s Progress’ on display was printed posthumously, yet still remains a part of Hogarth’s portfolio. Paolozzi did not see printing as merely a way to reproduce art but as a technology that allowed the artist to expand upon his creativity. The 20th century saw the rise of mass production, and much of Paolozzi’s work is heavily referential to technological advancements of the era. In printing art, the artist was able to emulate the mechanical processes his art often focussed on. In Hutchinson’s “glitching” of the statue of ‘Mercury’, he used an existing digital 3D scan of an original 19th century sculpture. This 3D scan is freely available online and is infinitely reproducible which allows the artwork to have a life of its own out of the control of the artist. The model has been reproduced in multiple materials allowing Hutchinson to refine his processes. The digital nature of the piece means that it can be continuously manipulated or “glitched” endlessly. The pieces are also reflective of the dangers of technology. Hogarth’s work was badly
reproduced and copied by other printers who never fully captured the essence of his work. Until he lobbied parliament to pass a law to protect artists’ intellectual property, forgeries could be so easily manufactured and widely distributed out of his control — an issue that would have been minor before the printing press’s invention. Now in the 21st century creations and ideas can be spread worldwide at the press of a button. Hutchinson’s “glitch” shows how quickly and easily concepts can be distorted out of recognition. Paolozzi’s ‘London to Paris’ warns of the mechanisation of humanity. The figure depicted shows a half-human, half-machine lying on a railway car, which serves as a self-portrait of the artist. The work speaks of humanity’s growing reliance on technology in war and how it has twisted conflict and continues to do so. Each of these works is timely, in our current time, technology has facilitated the spread of “fake news” and distorted truths across the world. As we become increasingly reliant on technology, our conceptualisation of reality becomes more and more abstracted. Written by Adam Dixon, Ziting Yang, Zihan Yu
London to Paris
Paolozzi’s work in the exhibition is an etching of half-body and half-mechanism; it depicts a train carriage with dismembered hands, feet, and a piece of machinery that looks like the head of a figure, along with a number of loose parts. They are transported like ‘cargo’ from one city to another. The disintegrated hands and feet were tied with ropes on them, as if they were telling their moods or expressing their discontent with the world. Paolozzi was inspired by his many train journeys from London to Paris. He was interested in mechanics, so there were animals and fragmentary machines in his works, and the figures are all split — a form he used to convey the brutality of war. The broken surface appears as though it has suffered damage and serves as the remnants of war. He utilised the piece to emphasise the turmoil caused by the collision of the old European order with the new technological world. Paolozzi had a series of works on this theme, as he was obsessed with mechanical techniques and enjoyed collecting old machine parts and discarded technical parts. These were then welded together and shaped into semi-abstract figures. Paolozzi specialised in describing his experience of the world through his work, an expression of concern, joy, fear, and wonder for the modern world. His prints act to tell a story to the viewer, using only visual language to communicate rather than words. Paolozzi once said, “I don’t want to make prints that will help people to escape from the terrible world. I want to remind them.”
Eduardo Paolozzi, 1994
Eduardo Paolozzi was born in Edinburgh and later worked in Paris. This period between 1947 and 1949 in Paris was an important influence on his further works because this is where he first properly encountered Surrealism.
Eduardo Paolozzi was known for his prints. Although he was recognized as one of the founding fathers of the Pop Art movement, his work has since been more accurately defined as Surrealism. However, he did not like to be restricted to one style, which is why he experimented with many styles in his work throughout his life. One curator has said about Paolozzi’s work, “Paolozzi was highly reluctant to have particular labels attached to him. He believed that this narrowed his many achievements — ‘pigeonholing’ him as one type of artist, when he wanted to work across every medium, and work with every subject matter available.” By not having a fixed label, Paolozzi had the freedom to create; he was able to work in different styles and images and experiment with his own themes and ideas while producing his work. He did not want to be seen as a Pop artist, but rather as an observer who explored something deeper and the presented them in a unique, artistic way. Similarly, with this piece of work, everyone gets a different feeling when viewing it; it ultimately depends on the person and what thoughts and moods they experience whilst reflection on the work. Written by Ziting Yang
James Hutchinson, 2017
Mercury Remixed James Hutchinson was born in London in 1968. He graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design in Painting (1990) and the Royal College of Art in Fine Art Printmaking (1998). His areas of expertise are contemporary art, painting, sculpture, digital art, and curation. Hutchinson’s practice has expanded to include a variety of media. He currently runs a studio in Whitley Bay and is working on painting, animation, 3D computer modelling, printing, progressive matting, and photographic projects. He has also collaborated with architects on redevelopment projects in Ouseburn (Newcastle), Roker, and Seaham. James Hutchinson “has been using digital means to construct 2D and 3D work since [he] received [his] painting degree at Chelsea in 1990”, and artists Oliver Laric, who also uses 3D printing, as well as Christian Lavigne and Derrick Woodham are among the artists whom Hutchinson has worked with. Hutchinson admires Woodham’s work and collaborates with him through the Parisbased Ars Mathematica organisation. Hutchinson’s work has its origins in the physical process of drawing, painting, and printmaking. His preference is to draw or build “sculptures and objects” with his cell phone. He also brings images from digital sources into the physical world, enjoying the blurring of the real and the virtual. His most famous work takes inspiration from the “marble and wood” of the modern home and incorporates Oliver Laric’s 3D scan of Joseph Nollekens’ 18th century marble sculpture ‘Mercury’, from the Usher Gallery in Lincoln. Hutchinson chose ‘Mercury’, because he liked Joseph Nollenkens’s original and had used several of Oliver Laric’s Lincoln 3D sweep depictions. He also liked the contrast
between the polished marble of the originals and the rough digital fake pixels applied from the grid blender. The process of altering the sculptural scans is that these blocks are like reversals of the original sculptural structure, and the square opposite the eye seems to echo the VR headset, making it a collage. The work also has a Paolozzi-esque quality which appeals to the artist. The smaller 3D printed version of ‘Mercury Remixed’ in the exhibition was made by a maker-bot 3D printer manufactured under the control of Hutchinson, and the larger, milled version of the original marble sculpture was made on a scale by a company specialising in 3D milling and protected with a painted surface. In terms of the technical realisation of this work, opposing materials and colours for 3D printing were chosen — black as the opposite of the original white sculpture. Written by Zihan Yu
A Rake’s Progress
‘A Rake’s Progress’ was the second Modern Moral Subject following Hogarth’s success with his first, ‘A Harlot’s Progress’. The series depicts chapters/acts of the life of the fictional Tom Rakesworth through a series of eight prints. In the story, Tom inherits his father’s money at a youthful age and begins to spend it on sex and gambling whilst trying to keep up appearances with those in higher circles. Eventually Tom’s debt catches up with him and he ends up in Fleet Prison, and, eventually, he is incarcerated in Bethlem Hospital. Though the premise is simple, there are underlying narratives and details that
William Hogarth, 1734
William Hogarth was one of the most seminal and prolific satirical artists in the 18th Century. The artist’s work can be found in collections belonging to Tate Britain, The Met, The Sir John Soane Museum, and many others. Hogarth grew up in St John’s Gate, the centre of London’s thriving printing and publishing industry at the time. As an apprentice silver engraver, he leant to engrave metal to a high standard. Developing on his training, Hogarth began to produce copper engraved prints in 1720. Initially, he made commercial prints for advertising events and businesses. During this time, satirical prints had gained popularity and had become a ubiquitous part of London’s printing scene. Hogarth’s practice focused on the telling of self-proclaimed “Modern Moral Subjects.” These stories humorously bear witness to the debauchery, lechery, and the depravity rife in London’s population at the time. Hogarth published his first satirical print, ‘Masquerades and Opera’ in 1724 which unapologetically ridiculed the upperclass’ bad taste in the arts. As Hogarth gained notoriety, he was able to afford to attend St Martin’s Lane Academy and fulfil his life-long dream of becoming a trained painter.
could easily be missed. On closer inspection we see recurring characters such as Tom’s long-suffering lover, Sarah Young, who was a potential nod towards the artist’s mother who had battled with his father’s financial misfortunes. Other smaller details such as the sole remaining portrait of Nero in scene three could allude to the death of Christian values in the society as the Roman Emperor was infamous for murdering Christians for entertainment.
‘A Rake’s Progress’ has been argued to be semi-biographical. Hogarth himself never found himself in a debtors’ prison, but his tumultuous career as an artist was marked with successes and failures. The series could be representative of Hogarth’s initial success with ‘A Harlot’s Progress’, which was quickly turned on its head as bad imitations of his first Moral Subject became widespread and tarnished his reputation. Hogarth was driven to distraction by such copycat works, and he could see them leading to his ruin. Hellbent on the end to forgery of artwork, Hogarth lobbied for the protection of artists’ intellectual property. Unfortunately, spies from rival printers visited his studios before he had completed his prints and forgeries were released before “Hogarth’s Law” was passed and his work’s debut. Although the imitation prints paled in comparison to the originals, they arguably led to a wider audience for Hogarth’s Modern Moral Subjects, and he became a household name throughout the country. Written by Adam Dixon
Therefore, I am
Wall Three Alice Hawkins, Sophie Lisa Smith, and Vinca Petersen use their art to differ from accepted societal standards. These female artists capture their own creative identities and that of the subjects in their artwork, which allows them to celebrate their culture, personalities, and the working-class culture that is often dismissed within the gallery walls and scrutinised by the media. Alice Hawkins is a fashion photographer and artist. Since graduating from Camberwell College of Art in 2002, she has photographed not only magazine covers, but people from all walks of life. Hawkins has her own aesthetic, listens to her instincts, and stays true to her voice and point of view. Hawkins likes to photograph ‘normal’ people, and she gives them a complete makeover, such as organising makeup and clothing teams for them and designing backgrounds for the shoot. She enhances her subjects through fashion, with the aim of making them look more like themselves and feel better about themselves. Sophie Lisa Smith encourages people to be themselves and open themselves up to new possibilities. Smith comes from a working-class background and has grown up on council estates. By displaying her artwork in a gallery, she is able to create a positive space for people of all works of life to feel welcome. Smith is influenced by the ‘rave scene’, particularly Makina and Techno music, which is apparent in the artworks she creates. The “wild creative”, as Smith describes herself, draws on her spiritual personality that allows her to connect with the world in a way that most do not. This allows Smith the freedom to express herself in her truest form. Vinca Petersen, throughout her work,
depicts rave culture and the Free Party scene of the 1990s and 2000s in London. Petersen describes her process as a ‘party’ with her camera and often focuses on the joy, freedom, and friendship that this methodology brings to her work. No System serves as a documentative record of recent culture, preserving memories and depicting unique moments experienced by herself and by other participants. Petersen believes that “Prints are more and more of a joy in our technological world”, allowing her works to support her need to tell the story to an audience and satisfying her desire to share with other people. These female artists empower themselves and others who can relate to their artwork and their lifestyles, creating a unification between gallery visitors, the artists, and the artworks themselves. They, therefore, blur the lines of what society deems ‘acceptable’. In this exhibition, Print Matters: The Ex Libris Collection, there are eight prints on display between Alice Hawkins (3), Sophie Lisa Smith (4), and Vinca Petersen (1). They use prints as a way of capturing a moment, feeling, and personality. In order to create these prints, they first need to be photographed, which many could say is ‘a means to an end’. Each ‘artist’, however, captures an essence of excitement and fun within each of their prints; this, again, empowers viewer and artist alike. Written by Zoe Milburn, Daiyu Zheng, Kenny Chung
Bekki Porter, Miss East Anglia, Essex 2006; Laura James, London, 2004; Beth Ditto, London, 2006
‘Beth Ditto, London, 2006’ is a photograph of Beth Ditto, an American singer-songwriter and actress. Hawkins is very fond of Beth, and her appearance is iconic. Hawkins shot her in profile so that Beth looks like a queen or empress on a coin. Hawkins believed it was a very respectful way to portray a person. If there is no eye contact with the audience, it makes them appear more iconic. ‘Laura James, London, 2004’, is part of the My England series. The characters in this series are some of the women Hawkins met in the nearest seaside town of Southend. Hawkins was fascinated with Laura from the first time they met. Although Hawkins knew that Laura would go on to pursue her dreams, before she did, Hawkins wanted to document her strength of both beauty and
confidence.
Alice Hawkins, 2004-6
Alice Hawkins is a famed photographer in the fashion industry. She graduated from Camberwell College of Art in 2002. After graduation, some fashion magazines began commissioning her, which presented an opportunity to collaborate with fashion stylists. Throughout Hawkins’s career, she has shot multiple covers for Pop Magazine, i-D, Russian Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar among others. Hawkins has photographed some of pop culture’s most well-known stars, including Dolly Parton, Pamela Anderson, and Kanye West as well as many ordinary people from all walks of life. Hawkins uses her insight into character, costume, context, and fashion to elevate her subjects, shaping extraordinary ways for her characters to become more fully themselves. In the three artworks in this exhibition, the females are dressed for their life, looking self-confident and beautiful. Hawkins tells the story of women’s portraits through photography, showing perspective on femininity and identity.
‘Bekki Porter, Miss East Anglia, Essex 2006’, is from a series of portraits Hawkins made of teenage beauty pageant contestants in Essex. The girls in this series are about 14 years old, but many look like adults. Hawkins organised a team of makeup artists and hair stylists for them. Her goal was to create intimate and formal portraits and to convey the feeling she had when she first saw them — that they were fun, young, attractive and ambitious. The collection is an expression of how Hawkins wants them to feel about themselves and be proud of who they are, whether it’s their own fashion or something brought to them by someone else. Hawkins’s artworks explore the boundaries between myth and reality, aiming to blur reality and the ideal in order to create a highly elevated reality. She has captured women to whom she gave a full makeover, demonstrating their unique beauty and confidence. Hawkins has her own aesthetic, listens to her instincts, and stays true to her own voice and point of view. She has no models in her studio, but, rather, enjoys casting and photographing people she finds interesting and attractive. By showing their style and dress, the women are able to show themselves better. Hawkins loves to capture everything she loves on camera and wants to continue her adventurous life. Written by Daiyu Zheng
Sophie Lisa Smith, 2014
Cosmic Princess in the Hood I & II, Geordie Mackem Magick I & II
Sophie Lisa Smith (formally Beresford) is a locally and internationally recognised artist and creative with showings at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland, Abrons Art Centre in New York City, and the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, where her work is now part of the permanent collection. She was awarded ‘Artist Newcomer of the Year’ in The Journal Culture Awards in 2010 and later went on to win Journal Culture Awards Visual Artist in 2017. Following that, Smith was awarded the Breeze Collective Experimental Studio 2018 residency, and, as a result, her exhibition of ‘Northeast Style’ was held at Abject 2 Gallery in Newcastle Upon Tyne. “I don’t have any religion; I don’t have any religion at all, but the closest thing to religion I have is ‘Northeast Style’ or ‘radgie culture’ because I was brought up on a council estate”. Her use of the word ‘radgie’ is Northern slang, which perfectly describes her wild and exciting personality; therefore, “what you see is what you get”. Born in Sunderland and raised in Washington, Sophie Lisa Smith was immersed in Northern culture — particularly the rave scene; her art celebrates the ideas of ‘Northeast Culture’ and ‘Council Estate Culture’ which is often scrutinised in the media. The working-class culture of Tyneside and Wearside is barely represented in contemporary art or in any positive and ambitious light. Smith tries to change this idea through the embodiment of her identity shown through her artwork, opening a barrier for those who don’t feel like they belong in the gallery environment. Smith often refers to herself as a ”wild creative or a radgie” rather than labelling herself as just simply an ‘artist’. “I’m like one of those humans that naturally are in-touch with more than what Western
culture says you can.” Smith channels her inner Shaman when making her artwork, using the intertwined aspects of her selfidentity through her movements, costumes, and outcomes. ‘Geordie Mackem Magick’ and ‘Cosmic Princess in the Hood’ show her connection to the universe. The costume worn in ‘Cosmic Princess in the Hood II’ was knitted by Smith and “the colours are in reference to a certain frequency of energy”. The archaic spelling of ‘magick’ was used in reference to energy fields behaving in a certain way upon personal will, or manifestation. The locations for the photographs are environments that were connected to Smith — areas where she lived or felt familiar in, like those she grew up in and around — -which allowed her to show “her true existing self” within them. With parents from Newcastle and Sunderland, Smith has grown up with rivalry football teams, which led to the disdain between Geordies and Mackems. Smith, however, doesn’t identify as Geordie or Mackem but as both, which is shown through the costume she wears in her prints ‘Geordie Mackem Magick I & II’. The Newcastle and Sunderland strips meshed into a rave like outfit creates a unification between both teams and her identity. Written by Zoe Milburn
Untitled
When she was six years old, Petersen moved to the United Kingdom, but, prior to that, she lived in Romania and Sweden. At sixteen years old, Petersen decided to study art whilst in London, but ended up discovering a squatting scene in the area that hugely impacted her. While engaging with the squatting scene in London, Petersen experienced a strong sense of emotion, community, family, and like-minded people which she had never felt before. This is where she started her adventure and, what she calls, a ‘party’ with her camera. She began to explore a new style of life based on joyfulness, friendship, and freedom. Throughout her work, Petersen utilises photography as a tool to collect and preserve memories she doesn’t want to forget, especially while living a ‘free life’. In 1999, Vinca Petersen published her first photobook with the same title of her series No System. She later self-published a second edition in 2020. No System displays the rave culture present in the Free Party scene, and it includes over 200 picture diary entries and ephemera. This serves as only a partial memory of her ten-year journey around Europe. Petersen notes that, “No System was
Vinca Petersen, 2000
Vinca Petersen was born in 1972 in Seoul, South Korea. She is a photographer, multimedia, and performance artist and has a photographic archive about independent dance culture of the Free Party scene in the 1990s and 2000s and creates interactive projects in galleries and museums. She currently has three publications entitled “No System”, “Future Fantasy”, and “Deuce and a Quarter”. Her work is also represented in several collections within the United Kingdom, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Arts Council Collection, and the Martin Parr Foundation.
designed as a positive and immersive look at my life as a traveller putting on raves. It was always about staying true to the people in the book. The photographs I take are an addition to a situation. I am not observing others doing things and documenting them. I am documenting myself and others in the act of participating. I am never separate from the action, I am always inside it.” No System acts not only as a memory of her life and the participants’ lives, but also as a record of a unique moment and culture in recent history. Vinca Petersen further elaborates on her work, stating that, “We are not rebelling against, so much as living outside the system. Free music to anyone that wants it is what we give and we need nothing back but space to roam. Tribal beats have surrounded our planet for thousands of years. Technology is our addition to this continual rhythm. Age is no concern, background irrelevant. We exist now and in the future. Welcome to our way of living.” Petersen’s current project, MAKE SOCIAL HONEY — A COLLECTIVE SEARCH FOR JOY, is exhibiting at Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland from February until April 2022. Written by Kenny Chung
Imagining Other Times
Wall Four Through their work, Marjolaine Ryley, Dan Holdsworth, and Kelly Richardson invite us to reflect on an inevitable aspect of life, displaying the passage of time and inviting viewers to contemplate how it relates to them. Through images of environments which surround us, these works combine to depict the past, present, and future — beginning with an exploration into memory, followed by the careful mapping of a glacier in its present state, and ending with a futuristic scene exploring the impacts of climate change on the environment. Marjolaine Ryley’s work often explores the representation of memory and the passing of time, linking ideas of history, relationships, and narratives. Her photographs are cumulative rather than sequential, reflecting research into the brain and the inaccuracy of memories. While discussing her photographs, Ryley remarks, “I hope they can trigger the viewers’ own internal maze and take them on a journey. This may be different every time and for everyone.” Recently, Ryley has shifted her attention slightly to more outdoor topics, investigating the imagined idea of a garden and how the passage of time has ultimately affected living things. This allows her to create parallels between the creation of her photographs and a garden, as both require light and time to produce. As she begins to shift methodologies from film to digital, she has begun to explore whether her work is ‘archival or compostable’ rather than if it’s ‘analogue or digital’. Dan Holdsworth explores the ‘extreme’ realm of human beings’ changing relationship with the ‘natural’ world in the anthropocene through a combination of the latest photographic techniques and scientific technology, uniting the natural and the
virtual. Holdsworth’s combination of art and science creates glaciers in ghostly, ethereal, seemingly translucent forms reminiscent of fragile, ephemeral landscapes. They appear almost invisible or flowing like molten glass, making us aware of the fragility of the environment we now live in. Holdsworth’s work is a unique presence both in conceptual terms and in the way it is presented. Through art created from scientific observations, he proves that ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ are not separate concepts. Holdsworth’s image is about the ‘historical present’ precisely because that is what is immediately absent. His generalisation of the ‘historical present’ requires him to imagine the past and to look far into the future. How can we continue to live in peace with the environment in the future? As a species on the planet, mankind’s longing for and worrying about the future environment is based on survival instinct. Kelly Richardson uses sophisticated digital techniques to mix with images of natural landscapes in order to create a stunning work of art resembling a science fiction movie. ‘Orion Tide’ paints a spectacular picture of rocket thrusters flying into space over a barren desert. The tension of the picture leaves viewers left to contemplate why humans left and where humanity will go. With her work, Richardson utilises a combination of the virtual and reality to make people feel uneasy about what the climate will look like in the future. She provokes viewers to think about how the human species was created and how we can live in harmony with the natural environment in the future. Written by Megan Tanner, Hongxiang Shi, Nanjie Zhau
Wheatfield from the series Growing up in the New Age
Photographed in 2013, the ‘Wheatfield’ is just one part of a larger series of works entitled Growing up in the New Age. This series explores Ryley’s personal history as it relates to her parents and to her childhood as well as social history in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s. The ‘Wheatfield’ is representative of a moment in the artist’s childhood — a memory with her father as they journeyed to “see a guru for a Krishnamurti talk”. While some of the artist’s photographs are more documentative, this particular work is a recreation of a memory, depicting a wheatfield in Northumberland rather than the one specific to the actual event. When discussing the ‘Wheatfield’, Ryley remarks, “I wanted a low angle so the ‘Wheatfield’ appeared both beautiful and slightly ominous. I also wanted the feeling of being surrounded and the texture and colour to enclose you.” Her work is often very personal and reflects on her own life and experiences; however, she encourages the viewer to interact with her photographs
Marjolaine Ryley, 2013
Marjolaine Ryley is a visual artist based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and is also part of several collections, including Serralves Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, Pavilion, and various private collections. Ryley’s work often “explores ideas of memory, history, familial relationships and archival narratives”. Keeping in mind the passage of time, which often includes death and destruction, she notes that, “these issues are probably at the heart of all my work [...]. But before death and decay there is also life. It’s that duality.” She has utilised this ideology throughout her work, and it remains the focus as she moves forward in her career.
and develop their own personal meanings and interpretations. This helps to create “an experience that transports you emotionally rather than demands of you intellectually.” As times change, she has begun to think about the various meanings her images may take individually, recently exploring how the ‘Wheatfield’ might relate both to fertility and to world food insecurity. With so much meaning and urgency intertwined throughout her work, the photographs often serve as a call to arms, further inviting viewers to engage with each one. While her focus is predominantly photography, she also takes a multidisciplinary approach, utilising super 8, digital videos, text, and archival materials to supplement her work. Ryley notes, “my work will always have multiple parts, fragments, materials, experiments and a playful use of different approaches because I know there is no absolute answer.” The square format of her photographs is influenced by the Rolleiflex, which she purchased and began utilising during her time as a BA student. From there, Ryley started to explore displaying her work together in grid-like structures to allow for a better utilisation of space within a gallery. This structure allows for Ryley to further develop narratives within her work but also helps to highlight different patterns and colours throughout the grid. Most recently, she has been exploring sustainable photography and alternative processes. Written by Megan Tanner
Dan Holdsworth, 2020
Argentiere Glacier Dan Holdsworth was born in 1974 in the garden city of Welling, England, but currently lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. Holdsworth studied photography at the London College of Printing and has exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead and the Barbican, London as well as group exhibitions at the Tate Gallery, London and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. His work is represented in the collections of the Tate, Denver Art Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. For many years, Holdsworth has been merging art, science, and nature to create work that challenges our perceptions and reshapes the concept of landscape. This helps to explore the ‘extreme’ areas of the changing relationship between humans and the ‘natural’ world in the anthropocene. Continuous Topography is a series of works produced by Dan Holdsworth in collaboration with research geologist Mark Allan, who surveyed the glaciers around Mont Blanc. This is the result of a three-year study that ran from 2014 to 2017. ‘Argentiere Glacier’ is a work completed by Holdsworth in print in 2017; however, the artwork on display now is a special limited edition printed in 2020. Through a collaboration of science, technology, and art that was unattainable before the 21st century, this is a result which combines all of these aspects. The results of the artworks are made possible using the latest photogrammetric and geomapping techniques and interdisciplinary work. The image was created through a lengthy process of correlating landscape photographs with GPS records to construct an intensely detailed virtual model of the glacier. Through this new creative approach, Holdsworth shows the fragility and complexity of glaciers, giving us an insight
into the changes in the Earth’s environment and the fragility of the ecology. This series of works is a combination of real natural environments and virtual ones. Each image is built up from millions of individual points — each point is a spatial coordinate but also has its tonal value in the original photograph, being ‘transposed’ into a virtual field. There is no doubt that Holdsworth’s work is unique in both concept and presentation. Through his art, Holdsworth expresses the environment at the edge of the human living world. Holdsworth’s unique form of ‘future archaeology’ provides us with knowledge of the world that we cannot obtain by any other means, although what that ‘knowledge’ is requires some unpacking. Through his artwork, he makes viewers aware of the fragility of our environment. Imagining our own place, or lack thereof, in a rapidly changing global environment is ‘unknown’. Dan Holdsworth’s work acts as an intersection between art and science. ‘Culture’ and ‘nature’ are not separate concepts but inseparable. For Holdsworth, the real power of the photographic image is not only to present the present but also to serve as a confrontation with time. In Holdsworth’s imaginary world, the digital age has indeed replaced everything else and remains a means of ‘presenting the unrepresentable’. Written by Nanjie Zhau
Orion Tide
‘Orion Tide’ depicts a dystopian future using synthetic images. Rocket thrusters fly from the barren desert toward space, and the smoke and fuzzy fire from the rocket jet across the night sky, leaving people with infinite reverie and reflection. Is the evacuation of the rocket to explore the new universe or are people forced to flee the planet? Without a definitive answer, Richardson’s work aims to capture the imagination and awaken thoughts about the future of the planet we live on. In order to create a more realistic visual effect, Richardson faced some significant technical challenges in creating this work — how to better handle fluid dynamics on a computer, that is, the smoke from a rocket booster in the picture. This was notoriously difficult to handle on computer software at the time, but she did it for better visual effect. This exhibition features a still from ‘Orion Tide’, 2012, through digital C-type print. While the information and format of the work is limited by pixels when expressed by video, prints, on the other hand, retain more information by bringing the fidelity of detail
Kelly Richardson, 2012
Kelly Richardson is an artist based in Toronto, Canada. She has lived and worked in the Northeast of England and taught at Newcastle University. She specialises in using sophisticated computer techniques to create stunning digital films of surreal synthetic landscapes. The main factor which inspired Richardson to use computers as a medium for animation art was her ideas, as animation is the only way to visualise or express her thoughts at that stage. She had never thought of becoming a moving image artist or animator before. This naturally happened over time as she struggled to find ideas that could not be better represented in any other way.
in the work into focus. In addition, the print is more manipulable, emphasising its vastness through the plane extension of the night sky in the picture. There’s a kind of sublimity in that extension, which reflects the value of the only habitable planet we know of right now. At the beginning, it seemed like a fantasy in a science fiction novel, with the development of time travel and space travel becoming possible. In recent years, a handful of entrepreneurs and celebrities have brought space travel plans into the spotlight, a significant shift for ‘Orion Tide’ that redefines science fiction and fantasy as the real world. We start to refocus attention on the true meaning of our species and whether real space travel is a curiosity about the vastness of space or a necessity for survival. The artistic core of printmaking is to give more people access to the artist’s work since print can be viewed simultaneously in different locations around the globe. There is a greater chance of change by getting as many people as possible to see the artist’s work in a short period of time and to realise the urgency of the message. Written by Hongxiang Shi
Print Matters: Ex Libris Collection Produced by The MA Art Museum and Gallery Studies Students of 2021-2022 at Newcastle University. Curated and organised by Adam Dixon Daiyu Zheng Hongxiang Shi Kenny Chung Katie Carr Megan Tanner Nanjie Zhao Sujin Son Yuting Wang Zihan Yu Ziting Yang Zoe Milburn Special thanks to the artists who have
generously lent work to the project; to Lee Turner of Hole Editions, Anna Wilkinson and Helen Donley at Northern Print and Jeff Heads at Digitalab; and to Irene Brown, Burnie Burns, Erika Servin and Nigel Villalard in Fine Art.
Contact us: NCLcurators2022@gmail.com