Work: Net Curtain

These pen and ink drawings and prints explore patterns, grids and repetitions, sometimes juxtaposed with layers of texture and chine collé, combine lino and mono printing with a monochrome palette. The imagery has its source in the everyday: a net curtain hanging in a window, in particular, the net curtain that hung in my grandparents’ kitchen window remembered from childhood. Prior to working in lino, I made many pen and ink drawings based on the pattern of this particular net curtain, developing them using colour and experimenting with paper marbling to see where I could visually take them.

The prints, based in part on my earlier drawings and encompassing my experiments with printing actual pieces of curtain fabric, are visual meditations, abstractions and experiments based on a familiar starting point, tessellating visual gestures making multiple impressions and playing with over-printing layers so the marks create depth and movement on the paper. The paradox being the linocut prints are very blocky and solid whereas fabric can be soft, fluid, ripple and move on the air.