A new linocut

19 December 2009

After several weeks struggling to produce some new prints, I've finally done something that's starting to go in the right direction. It's a two-stage reduction linocut, 16 x 16cm (each square is about 5cm).







First, I cut away the areas from the lino-block that I wanted to stay white, and then printed it in red. Then I cut away the areas that I want to stay red, and print that in black, on top of the red.

The image itself combines the influences of lots of things that I have been looking at recently (though the effect of the influences is quite diluted by the time they reach the paper):

-- the "Revolution on Paper" exhibition of Mexican prints at the British Museum

-- (deceptively) simple linocuts by Robert Taverner and Christopher Brown

-- the Warhol room at the Tate's Pop Life exhibition which had a wall of his celebrity portraits

-- and even the way we hung my paintings in groups of four and nine at a recent exhibition.