VOL. 2

Beyond the Beyond, Tim Phillips, 2012

TO START A CONVERSATION ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM:

CONTEMPORARY BRITISH PRINTMAKING

20 September – 1 November 2014

Component Cube 1, 2013 & Component Cube 2, 2014, Sophie Smallhorn

Fotoecken, 2012, Sarah Brigland

TO START A CONVERSATION ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM:

CONTEMPORARY BRITISH PRINTMAKING

Katy Binks / Adam Bridgland / Sarah

Bridgland / Fiona Hepburn / Tim Phillips /

Sophie Smallhorn / Katsu Yuasa

To Start a Conversation Across a Crowded

Room brings together seven artist

printmakers whose work highlights the

potency of print and printmaking techniques

within contemporary art today.

Whilst previous generations established

printmaking as a primary means of

expression akin to painting or sculpture,

these artists challenge the perception of

distinct mediums with fixed processes

through experimental and interdisciplinary

approaches. Through diverse use of

material and processes which include

screen-printing, paper and wood cut,

through to large-scale installation, the works

display a shared interest in sculptural,

physical and three dimensional elements

and possibilities within contemporary

printmaking. Together, the works reflect

upon the unique breadth of printmaking,

examining both how it informs and is

informed by other practices and disciplines.

Katsu Yuasa draws on the heritage of

printmaking in his highly detailed wood-cuts.

Inverting the historical narrative of

printmaking, Katsu’s process begins with a

digital image- a photograph- which he then

produces through a labour-intensive

process of recreating by hand. Reminiscent

of Dutch Master paintings and symbolism

within the momento mori tradition, the

works have a nostalgic presence.

Repetition and precision are also defining

characteristics of Fiona Hepburn’s practice.

Her hand-crafted paper constructions

employ several layers of screen-printing to

achieve their delicate combinations of

colour and form inspired by the natural

world.

Inquiries into colour, volume and

proportion lie at the centre of Sophie

Smallhorn’s sculptural works, mono and

screen prints. Highly resolved in their

formal compositions and finish, Sophie’s

varied practice is suggestive of printmaking

both as an initial test for an idea as well as

the means for full realisation. Overlays of

colour are also evident in Sarah Bridgland’s

works comprising of bolsa wood and paint.

These works mark a departure from her

intricate pop-up paper sculptures created

from found books and other discarded

items

Katy Bink’s bold, site-specific commission

comprising digitally printed material and

vinyl transforms the back of the gallery

space. This work continues her interest in

geometric lines and graphic forms and their

ability to transform space, affecting our

perceptions and experiences of it. Similarly

to Katy, Tim Phillip’s sculpture also

foregrounds how digital printing can

provide new tools for experimentation

within a broader contemporary art practice.

Adam Bridgland’s mixed media installation

Yo-Yo uses screen printing to reinvest life

and a playfulness into an abandoned cooper

wire spool. Sited in part outside of the

gallery, it serves to remind us of the

ubiquity of print within our everyday

experiences: a fact often overlooked or

under-appreciated.

A unique series of risograph editions

featuring the work of the exhibiting artists

accompanies the exhibition. Smiths Row

Series II, our second online exhibition

catalogue, will extend conversations around

the exhibition and is available online.

To Start A Conversation Across a

Crowded Room is co-curated by artist

printmaker Adam Bridgland.

With thanks to TAG Fine Arts and Patrick

Heide Contemporary Art.

EVENTS

EXHIBITION TOUR & BRUNCH

Saturday 4 October, 10.30 – 11.30 am / Free

Join co-curators Natalie Pace and Adam Bridgland for an informal tour of the exhibition

followed by coffee and croissants.

SMITHS ROW SALON: IN-CONVERSATION

Wednesday 8 October, 6 – 8 pm | £4 / £3 concessions / Free for Smiths Row Supporters Gill Saunders (Senior Curator, Prints, V&A London) and artist printmaker Adam Bridgland will

be in conversation about the ideas explored in the exhibition.

CUT AND CONSTRUCT! FAMILY-FRIENDLY WORKSHOP LED BY

ARTIST SARAH BRIDGLAND Saturday 18 October; 10 - 11 am & 2 – 3 pm / £3 per person.

Come and create your own sculptural paper collage and have a go at printing with stamps. Cut

and Construct! will explore geometric shape and form. Suitable for families with children aged

5-9 years.

Untitled, Katy Binks, commissioned

by Smiths Row, 2014

Yo-Yo (detail), Adam Bridgland, 2014

IN CONVERSATION

On contemporary printmaking

Fiona Hepburn: Printmaking has become much more accessible

in the past few years. It is now a central part of

many artists’s practice. Printmaking and its

traditions still remain at the heart of my own

work, and I am excited about how artists are

using ‘print’ in new ways, testing the boundaries

of the traditional techniques, and exploring the

possibilities of new technologies.

I come from a traditional Printmaking

background, and the process of carving and

etching a surface is in itself is a very sculptural

one, and the idea of transferring that feeling of

tactility to making the work comes quite

naturally. I like the fact that I can make my prints

sculptural, reflecting the physical properties of

making a block, and giving a sense of dimension

to a print, something which is sometimes lost

on a flat piece of paper.

Printmaking is a very important part of my

practice. My work tends to end up as a one off

piece of work, although the process of

producing a multiple still remains, as I print the

small shapes to cut and construct with.

Adam Bridgland: Printmaking is the most relevant of all the major

artistic mediums. Whether we are aware or

not, print surrounds us in our everyday,

particularly in the advertising and publications

that dominate our landscape and shape our

lifestyles.

Print has always been used to necessitate the

multiple reproduction of information. This leads

to power and knowledge, to develop or change

in opinion. For me, this is what makes it so

exciting and I enjoy how artists and designers

respond to this. There is such a breadth to

contemporary print as it encompasses both the

traditional and the new technology of digital

media. Within the exhibition I wanted to

present this marriage, displaying how both old

and new meet.

All art work should weigh heavy on how the

viewer engages and feels about the work. Art

like so many other forms of escape is so

objective so why close opinions on huge parts

of it. As there are so many elements to

printmaking it is easier to welcome other

creative forms such as design and fashion for

example. With this print then moves forward,

taking with it new forms and ideas that present

the viewer with something exciting, hybrids for

the next generation of practitioners.

Print also allows the blurring of the artistic

mediums. I am not a believer that a work is

labelled as fine art if it presented in a certain

way or particular space. A great album cover or

book sleeve has as much relevance as a piece

of art placed within a white cube. Throughout

my development as an artist I have been equally

delighted to create work to display in a gallery

as well as create art works for records, books,

magazine and printed fabrics as they all have a

weight that can be presented to the viewer,

Sophie Smallhorn: What I love about screen printing is the ability

to play with colour in a very playful and

immediate way. I enjoy the chance to work

through ideas quickly and fearlessly and to make

mistakes that can be disregarded and learnt

from. The process of making my three

dimensional pieces is fairly long, from

conception to fabrication and then to colour

but the immediacy of printmaking is a perfect

relief from this.

Installation Image, Smiths Row, 2014

The Pier, Sarah Bridgland, 2012

Installation Image, Smiths Row, 2014

SMITHS ROW SOUNDTRACK

Tim Phillips on the relationship between music

and his process

I have always loved hip hop music, and I was

always beguiled by the thought of ingenious

musicians/rappers in the ghettos of America

making incredible records in the 80's seemingly

out of thin air. It was only later in life, when I

started making music myself, that I came to see

that the music I loved was made by sampling -

splicing and rearranging old records from the

60's and 70's, and extracting parts of drums and

other instruments into new rhythms and

arrangements. This to me has interesting

parallels with printmaking and my own artistic

practise.

Reconfiguring the detritus from advertising, hair

commercials, museum arrangements, car show

rooms, and shop displays- my work has a similar

sense of sampling and splicing. Artists have

always reconfigured elements of their

environments into new readings of the familiar

and everyday. Similarly, It is interesting how out

of a lack of money to buy instruments, the early

pioneers of hip hop made incredible new

sounds by the limitations and familiar sounds of

their environment, and used sampling machines

to arrange small clips of their parents old

blues/jazz/funk records into new, experimental

songs, often unrecognisable from the original

records drum stabs or bass lines.

In this same way, print has always dealt with the

idea of mechanical intermediaries, processing a

mark on a plate or screen into often new and

unfamiliar ways. The idea of the multiple and

the machine often creates something very

interesting from the most simple of marks and

form the basis of my use of the computer to

form artificial renderings of crystals and stones

from simple parameters of light and refraction

to create something widely exaggerated from

the natural world. Like the drum breaks used in

hip hop, spliced from drum sections of old funk

records, there is the trace of something man

made , but processed through the machine,

something is added, an exaggerated 'crunch' to

the sound which is at once human and

mechanised.

Artist Song Name Chosen by

Billy Cobham Heather Tim Phillips

Giorgio Moroder Leopard Tree Dream Tim Phillips

Teenage Fanclub Can't Feel My Soul Adam Bridgland

Wilco Company In My Back Adam Bridgland

Yellow Ostrich Here Today Adam Bridgland

LCD Soundsystem All My Friends Adam Bridgland

The War on Drugs Red Eyes Sarah Bridgland

Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending Sarah Bridgland

Super Furry Animals Northern Lites Sarah Bridgland

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds The Ship Song Natalie Pace

My Panda Shall Fly & Adventure

Elephant

Opening Brace Katy Binks

The Busy Twist Labadi Warrior Katy Binks

Tim Phillips Soundtrack Choices

'Heather' by Billy Cobham

An amazing slow building synth, accompanies a

beautifully melodic jazz standard. This was used

to great effect in the hip hop record '93 till

infinity' by Souls of Mischief. They sped up the

intro and created an amazing rhythmic

arrangement from something that originally

sounded like a swelling sea. It is amazing how

the glockenspiel sounds sped up on the

reconfigured record.

'Leopard Tree Dream' by Giorgio Moroder

This old record from the soundtrack to terrible

80's teen flick 'The Cat People' was used by

hip hop producer El-P in the highly

experimental band 'Cannibal Ox.' Moroder is

famous to have said that most dance music

copied his recipe for electronic bass lines from

the 70's onwards, and it is interesting how his

influence stretched far beyond the discos. This

is something dug from the OST archives, and

looped to produce such an amazing,

experimental, and futuristic sounding track for

this highly original group of musicians from New

York

Installation Image, Smiths Row, 2014

Smiths Row is committed to providing artists and makers with the opportunity to produce new work

and offering visitors the ability to enjoy and support contemporary art and craft

To accompany To Start A Conversation Across A Crowded Room: Contemporary British Printmaking,

we invited each artist to produce a new risograph print.

Left to Right:

Untitled, Katy Binks

Vorticella, Fiona Hepburn

Yo-Yo, Adam Bridgland

Crowd, Sophie Smallhorn

The Park, Sarah Bridgland

Resonance, Katsu Yuasa,

Parabens, Tim Phillips

All editions:

£50 unframed each, £95 framed

Full set of seven: £300

Risograph on Mohawk 270 gsm paper

42 x 29.7 cm

Edition of 30

Please contact the gallery for information.

SMITHS ROW SERIES are publications available online which aim to extend conversations around

our exhibition programme.

Smiths Row would like to thank the following

for their help and contributions to the making of

‘To Start a Conversation Across a Crowded Room: Contemporary British Printmaking’:

Adam Bridgland

Katy Binks

Sarah Bridgland

Fiona Hepburn

Tim Phillips

Sophie Smallhorn

Katsu Yuasa

Patrick Heide Contemporary Art

TAG Fine Arts

Niki Braithwaite

All of the staff and interns at Smiths Row

Smiths Row The Market Cross

Cornhill

Bury St Edmunds

Suffolk

IP33 1BT

+44 (0)1284 762081

www.smithsrow.org

enquiries@smithsrow.org