The ‘Newsprint Open 2’ at The North Yorks Art School in Scarborough invited artists to submit work using newsprint paper. The paper is cheap, readily available (printed or unprinted) and is strangely very thin and yet robust. I chose to respond to the theme ‘1922: It was 100 Years ago’ and specifically I explored the much appreciated poem ‘The Waste Land’ by T S Elliot which has stayed with me since I studied it in my teens. The result was a large, energetic monotype print / painting some 200cm x 180cm.

As a printmaker and artist I’m interested in textural mark making. Responding to the dysfunctional dystopia of ‘The Waste Land’ my monotype printing marks have become darkly frantic, and the viscosity of the ink battles with the fragility of the paper.

T.S.Eliot expresses his disgust in the moral decay of modern life and the degradation of culture. The River Thames runs filthy and polluted as an allegory for the breakdown of society portrayed in my piece using deep black etching ink that soaks into the delicate newsprint. Yet even here, within the sticky oils, there is a potential for beauty. 

Newsprint Open runs from 14th August – 2nd October 2022 at South Street, Scarborough YO11 2BP