GAMES OF COLOUR, is how a friend perfectly summarised this supersized screen print for me.
The first screen print developed in my Dragonfly Diaries Print Series, and the most abstract and experimental of them all, 'A Fine Balancing Act’ shows a traditional Vietnamese wooden dragonfly toy balanced precariously on an extended finger. I was fascinated by these little wooden toys the first time I came across them in a vintage shop in a backstreet of Hanoi, Vietnam. How could a simple wooden dragonfly balance so delicately on the end of your finger, somehow defying gravity as it stayed hooked on even as you moved your hand around.
In a lot of ways, my fixation with these little toys became the starting point for the series; the dragonfly becoming a metaphor for balance and imbalance in nature, play and whimsy, curiosity and concern for the environment as our human impact tips precariously off balance, doing more harm than good.
In this screen print, made completely through drawing on tracing paper in Indian ink, lithograph pencil and collage, you can see how the colours and textures dance. Here as I was sketching and playing, through the medium of screen printing, to play with texture and metaphor, hiding details in the densely layered scribbles of overlapping colour.
It was great fun to make, but these prints have lived in my plan chest for too long, and now it’s time to see them flutter their wings and fly!
This is a real statement print for lovers of colour and texture, please check the dimensions below as this ones a real whopper!
2019, 98.5 x 74 cm, edition of 15
5 colour silk-screen print on HahneMuehle fine art paper.
Printed on location at the Guanlan Printmaking Base, Shenzhen, China, 2019.
GAMES OF COLOUR, is how a friend perfectly summarised this supersized screen print for me.
The first screen print developed in my Dragonfly Diaries Print Series, and the most abstract and experimental of them all, 'A Fine Balancing Act’ shows a traditional Vietnamese wooden dragonfly toy balanced precariously on an extended finger. I was fascinated by these little wooden toys the first time I came across them in a vintage shop in a backstreet of Hanoi, Vietnam. How could a simple wooden dragonfly balance so delicately on the end of your finger, somehow defying gravity as it stayed hooked on even as you moved your hand around.
In a lot of ways, my fixation with these little toys became the starting point for the series; the dragonfly becoming a metaphor for balance and imbalance in nature, play and whimsy, curiosity and concern for the environment as our human impact tips precariously off balance, doing more harm than good.
In this screen print, made completely through drawing on tracing paper in Indian ink, lithograph pencil and collage, you can see how the colours and textures dance. Here as I was sketching and playing, through the medium of screen printing, to play with texture and metaphor, hiding details in the densely layered scribbles of overlapping colour.
It was great fun to make, but these prints have lived in my plan chest for too long, and now it’s time to see them flutter their wings and fly!
This is a real statement print for lovers of colour and texture, please check the dimensions below as this ones a real whopper!
2019, 98.5 x 74 cm, edition of 15
5 colour silk-screen print on HahneMuehle fine art paper.
Printed on location at the Guanlan Printmaking Base, Shenzhen, China, 2019.
