Bristol Print Collective
About Us
Bristol Print Collective deliver printmaking workshops in pop up venues in galleries, festivals and community spaces. Our aim is to keep the traditions of printmaking alive by offering accessible and engaging workshops for all members of society.Bristol Print Collective was founded by artists Jemma Gunning and Victoria Willmott. We met in 2015 whilst studying an MA in Multi-disciplinary Printmaking at University of West of England, Bristol. We found we each shared an interest for discovering DIY lo-tech printmaking and explored creative processes to make printmaking workshops transportable without large equipment. In this way our workshops show how printmaking can be enjoyed outside of a studio in any environment and for all ages and abilities.We wish to encourage adults who may not have an artistic background to explore their creativity whilst learning a new skill. Demonstrating the creative and limitless possibilities we hope to inspire younger generations and other likeminded artists to pick up an apron and get inky.
Members
Jemma Gunning
Jemma’s practice is an investigation into our fading heritage and changing landscapes. Place, people, and things get left behind and made marginal in the landscapes and the spaces she has come to find herself recording – they are the remnants of human endeavour.
Recording, responding, and reflecting on the places she draws inspiration from helps her attempt to make sense of the past and how obsolete impacts our future. Researching the true meaning behind industrial loss brings a greater understanding of the communities and landscapes that have shaped our histories and by the way economic and social practices frame ideas and values.
Drawing underpins her work and informs her printmaking methodologies. With a love for intaglio and lithographic processes, and the connection that they have with our relationship with the environment; her work captures fleeting moments of time, offering us a portal into the past. Like our presence, the use of acids in my printmaking practice physically manipulates the surface of metals and stones, resonating with the impact humanity has on our planet.
Victoria willmott
Victoria Willmott is an printmaker and artist educator with a BA in Illustration from Camberwell College of Arts and an MA in Multi-disciplinary Printmaking from University of the West of England. Victoria creates her illustrations from initial observational sketches of people, nature and buildings in cities she visits. Travelling by bike is Victoria’s favourite way to explore a city, finding her own way around and noticing the everyday life and character of a place. Her drawings from life are then translated onto lino to create stamps that through playful compositions start to suggest narratives and mapping. Victoria enjoys the immediacy of printing lino by hand making the prints come to life one stamp at a time.
Sonja Burnie
Sonja is a collaborator, facilitator and visual communicator. With her foundations in Illustration, Sonja moves between making work in response to a company or individuals vision or from her own perspective. In her posters, narrative booklets, digital illustrations and wall hangings she uses fluid shapes and bodies to communicate in warm nostalgic colours.
She is one half of Blue Roll Press; a mobile printing duo, together with Luke Wade. The Blue Roll mission is to bring printmaking to the people.
Luke Sebastian Wade
Luke is an artist with a deep passion for all things print. With intaglio as his specialism, he has worked in a variety of print studios across London and then Bristol, where he moved in 2019 to seek new frontiers.
His work focuses on threat, documentary and eschatology in western society. When the news grows too bleak, he moves to a different print process to gain some relief and fresh perspective.
Luke is one half of Blue Roll Press; a mobile print workshop founded with fellow artist-printmaker, Sonja Burnie. Together they seek to bring the joy of printmaking out from the studio and into the city where people can fully engage with the process.
John Coe
John is the main man behind the quarterly printmaking magazine 'Pressing Matters'. He loves printmaking almost as much as he likes a pun, so he's found his happy place creating a publication full of inky inspiration, which celebrates the best of modern printmaking from around the world. Made by printmakers for printmakers, he and his contributors speak to artists about their creative processes and passion for print.
When he's not up to his elbows in emails, articles and artwork, he makes prints under the moniker Bothy Editions. A bit of a magpie for techniques and approaches to printmaking, he loves having a go at everything and is quite happy seeing where it takes him. Found objects, old buildings and skateboarders have a habit of turning up in his work, but he's not sure why to be honest.
pressingmattersmag.com
Theo Wang
Print & Ephemera
Print & Ephemera is a letterpress printer, purveyor of typographic design and kindred trades. All their work is produced entirely by hand in Bristol using Victorian treadle presses, an extensive collection of traditional lead and woodblock type, brass picture blocks and all manner of printing equipment. Their aim is to keep alive the letterpress tradition and apply it to a contemporary setting through craftsmanship and practice.
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