Northern Theme at the Printmakers
In its final week at the Edinburgh Printmakers Gallery is a fascinating exhibition by two of the country’s foremost printmakers Alastair Clark and Gill Tyson. Alastair was working on an exhibition entitled Skylights, inspired by the Aurora Borealis, while quite independently, Gill was preparing a series of lithographs inspired by a summer spent on the Lofoten Islands, north of the Arctic Circle. This common theme of northern light, in the form of the aurora borealis and the midnight sun, make a ‘brilliant’ combination.
One evening In 2004, Alastair was dragged from his house by a neighbour to witness the play of light that is the Aurora Borealis. Not often seen in Edinburgh, the phenomenon was also seen as far south as London. Alastair had produced previous works inspired by the idea of the Aurora but now he was so captivated by its ethereal beauty that he wanted to use this experience in his work.
To Alastair, the beauty of printmaking is that it allows the artist to bring together different elements of mark making: drawing, painting, computer graphics, photography and being able to fuse them in a way that is both beautiful and fun.
He submitted a proposal to a workshop in Bristol where he could further develop the digital side of printmaking and began by producing the animation, a captivating series of images which are based on photographs overlaid with digitally created shapes. The 4 minute long piece is ’set’ to Neptune the mystic, from Holst’s Planet Suite. It took 6 months of working at a computer. “It looks rough to me now,” he says, “having seen the prints, but I couldn’t have done it any other way.”
Two light boxes also feature in the exhibition, one a purple sky speckled with stars, which looks like a silk painting but is actually a plastic sheet painted with lighting gels, with the studio vaguely visible through it, while the other is a self lit light box, shining with dramatic greeens and turquoises.
Alastair has enjoyed creating the light boxes and and would like to do more, playing with dark and light. “It has curious new roads to explore and outcomes of work,” he says. “They’re not just pictures on a wall.”
Printmakers (and this is the skill) create pictures in their medium without reference to a completed idea of a picture. It grows on the medium – stone, in the case of lithographers, like Gill Tyson. Her inspiration for Arctic Circus was a group of lonely islands which typify the kind of scenery she loves – wild areas which have been slightly touched by the hand of mankind.
She has done a lot of work in Orkney and her Norwegian neighbour suggested that the Lofoten Islands might offer the kind of inspiration she was looking for. “I went there expecting Orkney,” she says “but it was more like the West Coast on steroids.” She and her busband stayed in a former fishing hut on stilts and watched the changing shades of light during the hours of the midnight sun.
She photographs and sketches. “A photograph reminds you of everything,” she explains “but a sketch brings out the important things, the things you want to bring out in the print.”
Of all forms of printmaking, lithography, which involves painting on stone (in particular Bavarian limestone) is the most ‘painterly’ and can produce similar tectures to watercolours. This is clearest in Gill’s skies, billowing clouds of grey and stormy white. The texture afforded by the process means that even with the most simple image, there is a lot going on.
The title piece, Arctic Circus, “was a gift”. It features a bleak landscape with, in the fopreground, a telegraph pole to which is pasted an advertisement for a circus. Other works show wild landscapes with a fish farm, or an electricity wire, or a pair of tiny houses.
The contrast between the results of these artists’ fascination with norther lights is dramatic. While Alastair’s pieces are vibrant and electrifying, Gill’s are mainly grey, quiet and brooding. Both get under your skin.
Like Alastair, Gill is not inspired by the thought of selling her work to make a living but she does acknowledge the need to find a sympathetic outlet for her work. Their exhibition ends this week. Printmakers Gallery.
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