Lynne Blackburn MA
Artist/Printmaker
Statement & CV
My practice has revolved around printmaking since completing my BA in Fine Art Printmaking at Maidstone College of Art in 1987. I went back to college, to gain an MA in Printmaking at Camberwell University of the Arts, in 2009 and then set up my own screen print editioning business – Hippo Screenprinters – where I print editions for other artists.
I make abstract monoprints, often involving text, using a silkscreen as the matrix and either painting directly onto it, exposing hand drawn or painted marks, or using simple torn paper stencils. The substrate is integral to the work and I like to make use of off-cuts of various papers I have in the studio, the back of used paper, or vintage papers – all of which come with a ‘built-in’ history which I feel adds to the concept and depth of the work.
Making art is, and has always been, my way of processing emotion. The process of creation allows me to pause, clear my mind and find space for thought, meditation and transcendence. I’m interested in themes of aging and the passing of time; feelings of impermanence brought about by loss, grief and absence and my attempts to come to terms with these issues and to rebuild, recreate, piece together and grow.
The prints usually happen in series’ with each individual piece developing in its own way during the process of painting, printing, layering, collaging and mark-making. I try to allow the prints to lead me as they progress while looking for relationships and tension to arise between the printed shapes and the empty space around them or the surface and texture of the substrate or manipulated collaged papers. I encourage ‘mistakes’ by letting the ink bleed under the stencil, or allowing the ink to dry in the screen to cause a solid shape to become faded – ghostly & ephemeral, suggesting the transitory nature of everything.
I exhibit my work regularly at Art Fairs including The Affordable Art Fairs in Hampstead and Battersea, and with a group of fellow Printmakers – LOOP Artists – who have an annual show at Bankside Gallery in London as well as other exhibitions nationally.
I held a solo exhibition at The Cauliflower in Ilford and have exhibited with The Bainbridge Open & Cultivate. I’ve taken part in group shows many times with East London Printmakers at galleries such as The Embassy Tea Gallery, Shoreditch; Forman’s Gallery on Fish Island; Bruder Grimm Museum in Kassel, Germany; the V&A Museum of Childhood; GLA City Hall, London and many more.
Statement & CV
My practice has revolved around printmaking since completing my BA in Fine Art Printmaking at Maidstone College of Art in 1987. I went back to college, to gain an MA in Printmaking at Camberwell University of the Arts, in 2009 and then set up my own screen print editioning business – Hippo Screenprinters – where I print editions for other artists.
Working with screen printing as a career has led me, in my own practice, to explore a more painterly approach to using silkscreen printing to create multi-layered, unique, monoprints, usually also including handwritten, or screenprinted text and gold leaf. The words and phrases I use in my pieces are based on my life experience; by the situations that we have all been through in the last few years and where we find ourselves now – both socially, politically, and personally. The works explore the meaning and use of words by the media and government to influence, manipulate and confuse us and my own experience of aging, being an artist whilst also running a business and the state of the world as I see it, often humorous and exasperated in equal measure!
I exhibit my work regularly at Art Fairs including The Affordable Art Fairs in Hampstead and Battersea, and annually with a group of fellow Printmakers – LOOP Artists – at Bankside Gallery in London. I held a solo exhibition at The Cauliflower in Ilford and have exhibited with The Bainbridge Open & Cultivate. I’ve taken part in group shows many times with East London Printmakers at galleries such as The Embassy Tea Gallery, Shoreditch; Forman’s Gallery on Fish Island; Bruder Grimm Museum in Kassel, Germany; the V&A Museum of Childhood; GLA City Hall, London and many more.