‘Bust of Hogarth (right side)’
Graphite on paper, 23 x 30 cm.
Above: ‘Bust of Hogarth (left side/three-quarters)’, graphite on paper, 23 x 30 cm. Below: ‘Radiant Faces’, copper-plate etching with monoprint (variable edition of seven), 21 x 30 cm.
‘Vanessa (after Duncan Grant)’
Coloured pencil on paper, 23 x 30 cm.
‘Vanessa (in Magenta)’
Softground etching with aquatint and monoprint, 19 x 29cm.
‘The Agony In the Garden (after William Blake)’
Graphite on paper, 29.5 x 21 cm.
‘Couple Sleeping (Westminster Abbey)’
Graphite on paper, 29.5 x 21cm.
Above: ‘Nativity (after Pierro della Francesca)’, graphite on paper, 83 x 83 cm. Below: ‘Life drawings (anatomy & personhood series)’, graphite on paper, 30 x 42 cm generally.
‘Thy Sons & thy Daughters were eating & drinking Wine in their eldest Brother’s house...’
Ink, oil, graphite, gesso and tracing paper on paper, 60 x 49 cm.
‘…& behold there came a great wind from the Wilderness & smote upon the four faces of the house…’
Ink on paper, 25 x 17 cm.
‘Earth, Do Not Cover My Blood… (Monumental hands)’
(Two stages.) Oil on board, 34.5 x 25 cm.
‘Miserable Comforter’
Graphite on paper, 16.5 x 12. 5cm.
‘Wife of Job’
Graphite on paper, 42 x 30 cm.
‘I am Young & ye are very Old wherefore I was afraid.’
(Two variations.) Multi-plate etching on copper and aluminium, 31 x 24 cm.
‘I Know That My Redeemer Lives, & that In The End He Will Stand Upon the Earth.’
Etching and engraving with monoprint, 30 x 22 cm.
‘I have sewed sackcloth over my skin
and buried my brow in the dust.
My face is red with weeping,
dark shadows ring my eyes;
yet my hands have been free of violence
and my prayer is pure.
‘Earth, do not cover my blood;
may my cry never be laid to rest!
Even now my witness is in heaven;
my advocate is on high.
My intercessor is my friend
as my eyes pour out tears to God;
on behalf of a man he pleads with God
as one pleads for a friend.
‘Only a few years will pass
before I take the path of no return.’
Job 16: 15-22 (NIVUK)
Above: ‘My Intercessor Is My Friend’, two-plate, copper-plate etching with aquatint (variable edition of three). 2019. Below: the plates printed separately in black.
‘When the Morning Stars Sang Together and All the Sons of God Shouted for Joy… (Knowest Thou the Ordinances of Heaven?)’
Graphite, coloured pencil, ink, gouache and gesso on paper, 110 x 150 cm.
Above: Staged photograph and related photopolymer print (2013) after Nicolas Poussin’s Sacrament of Penance (1647, Scottish National Gallery). Model poses as woman cradling Christ’s foot.
Above: Ten-minute drawing, staged photograph and related photopolymer print (2013-14) after Nicolas Poussin’s Sacrament of Extreme Unction (c. 1638-40, Scottish National Gallery). Model poses as woman at foot of dying man’s bed.
Above: Ten-minute drawing and staged photograph (2014) after Johannes Vermeer’s Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (1655, Scottish National Gallery). Model poses as Mary of Bethany, listening.
Above: ‘Tintoretto/ Christ Carried’ (2013), still image from short video based on Tintoretto’s ‘Christ Carried to the Tomb’ (1550, Scottish National Gallery). Artist gets into position as woman attending to Christ’s distressed mother. Below: Photographs documenting my Degree Show installation, which included a 47-minute video projection.
I began my final year project by producing a catalogue of drawings - close studies of the female ‘religious’ subjects on permanent display within the gallery. I set myself strict regulations regarding the size, medium and speed of each drawing’s execution: the timer was set to ten (initially twelve) minutes, and each woman was drawn in black ink to neatly occupy an A5 box. The drawings were individually borne of sincere engagement with the subject, and yet collectively they function as an ostensibly objective critique of female representation within the gallery.
A word on Photopolymer:
Having read Gordon Fyfe’s article, ‘Reproductions, Cultural Capital and Museums: Aspects of the Culture of Copies’ (2004), I became interested in the historically contested relationship between painting and the so-called ‘copyist’ media of printmaking and photography. According to Fyfe, the latter have frequently served as handmaidens to the traditionally venerated medium of painting, acting as aids to its dissemination and canonisation - and at times overlooked as serious art forms in their own right.
*Indeed, prior to the nineteenth-century advent of photography, engraving functioned largely as an important means of reproducing and promoting paintings in the west. This is of course no longer the case; whereas William Blake likely became familiar with Michelangelo’s frescoes via prints widely available in eighteenth-century London, today’s consumers experience the artist’s work primarily through the photographic image - be it in museum catalogues, on postcards or online. It is worth noting the homogenising effect of reproduction technologies; as on Instagram (for instance), artworks of vastly differing scales are shrunk or expanded to fit a uniform rectangle/square - surface texture and natural colouration are lost in translation.
Photopolymer involves exposing a photographic image onto an etching plate for intaglio printing. The process conflates contemporary and traditional methods of reproducing paintings. For this reason it seemed a fitting vehicle for exploring my subject matter - the religious painting collection at the Scottish National Gallery on the mound.
