Lino Prints and Artists

Following on from my exploration and development of art inspired by movement / kinetic art, and as mentioned in my exploration of ideas, I have decided to explore lino printing. The heavy deliberate movements of ink pressing relates back to the folding fence that I was initially inspired by;

The folding fence inspired me to explore the idea of heavy deliberate movements, such as ink pressing and movement art, as well as the idea of 'snapshots' from the movement of the fence; the idea of 'what if..?' and the idea of a glimpse into the past / future, and 'restoration to perfection'. These ideas is what also helped me to chose Wymering Manor to be my site as they coincided with my S.A.H.R. project.

Amy Hiley

Amy Hiley is a printmaker who makes contemporary linocut prints about philosophy, motherhood and the human experience, as well as interdisciplinary work exploring memory and ritual. Amy Hiley is interested in simplicity of form, bold design, and the practice of transforming experiences or concepts into a single image. (1)

I really like the boldness and simplicity of Amy Hiley's prints. They're very thought provoking and have deep complex meaning behind each print, although simple, they're very bold and powerful prints.

Scott Minzy

Scott Minzy's work addresses the themes of fear, regret and longing. In his prints, Scott Minzy manifests these feelings through a intricate network of wiry, anatomical lines. Scott Minzy says on his website that he is "committed to creating an alternate world, in which I make a statement about the nature of reality, about my own involvement with reality." (2)

Although quite graphic and gory, Scott Minzy's prints have amazing details and his intricate line work is very beautiful and is very successful in creating depth and dimension in his prints. His attention to line work successfully manifests his themes though his prints.

Lill Tschudi

Lill Tschudi was a Swiss artist, printmaker and illustrator. Lill made over 450 linocuts, 500 watercolour paintings and over 200 oil paintings. (3) Her Linolcuts from the mid 30s like the Tour de Suisse gained massive popularity by showing the complexity and beauty of her art. Despite being one of the only female artists of her genre and coming from a small village, she was a central part of the Grosvenor School of Modern Art. (3)

I really like Lill Tschudi's prints as I personally haven't seen a lot of linoprints with colour and of realistic people. I really like her attention to detail and the way she uses colour to show shadows and light within her prints.

Sybil Andrews

Sybil Andrews was an English-Canadian artist who specialised in printmaking and is best known for her modernist linocuts. Sybil Andrews was influenced by the art movements of her time; Vorticism and Futurism, by combining both art movements she was able to reflect on the fast pasted modernisation of society. Sybil Andrews creates compositions which capture movement in all forms; human, animal, and mechanical. (4)

Similar to Lill Tschudi, Sybil Andrews use of colour and hatching creates very detailed prints with a lot of dimension. Sybil Andrews hatchings captures movement extremely well, her focus on the shapes and compositions of her work make her prints look like still images.

Frances Gearhart

Frances Gearhart was an American printmaker and watercolourist known for her boldly drawn and coloured woodcut and linocut prints of American landscapes. She is one of the most important American colour block print artists of the early 20th century. (5) Influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, Frances Gearhart made prints that featured strong use of black or blue lines together with rich foreground colours. She often included paths and roads to lead the viewer into the image. (5)

Frances Gearhart's use of black and blue ink and rich colours creates very successful depth and dimension within her work. Her work is extremely detailed, intricate, and captivating. I like that she uses blue ink along side the black ink in her prints, it creates dimension without causing bold black areas in her prints.

I am really looking forward to experimenting with linoprinting, it is a media that I haven't used before and I am excited to see how I fail and succeed with it.

Image References (in order of appearance);

- Photo of my own notes.

- Photo of one of Amy Hiley's prints: https://www.amyhileyart.com/portfolio

- Photo of one of Scott Minzy's prints: https://www.scottminzy.com/more-work

- Photo of one of Lill Tschudi's prints: https://lill-tschudi.com/linocuts/

- Photo of one of Sybil Andrews' prints: https://www.artnet.com/artists/sybil-andrews/

- Photo of one of Frances Gearhart's prints: https://www.jmwgallery.com/prints-paintings-1/frances-gearhart-arts-amp-crafts-block-print-seaward

- Photo of one of Frances Gearhart's prints: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/detail/22444/Frances-Gearhart/Lake-Tahoe

- Photo of one of Frances Gearhart's prints: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Gearhart