Flourish 2020 . Paulette Bansal is a freelance artist-printmaker currently working out of Hot Bed Press Studios in Salford. She is a member of ‘Reveal Printmakers’ and has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions and print fairs throughout in the UK and USA. Previously, she studied textile design and worked for many years as a lecturer in art & design education, followed by a period as managing partner in a digital art business. . Central to Paulette’s method of working is to visually record information when ‘on the move’ - locally walking around, on holiday, visiting a new place. These elements – particular colours, lines in the landscape, surfaces and unusual composition - are then developed into the imagery for her prints.  She finds etching a more intimate type of printing and focuses on the physicality of the plates: ‘The unknown outcome of the finished piece often feeds my investigation.’ . Seen here are images of prints recently exhibited with Reveal Printmakers in Stockport, and Paulette’s allotment – her current ‘lockdown workspace’! . #FlourishAward #printmaking #allotment #lifeinlockdown #etching #manchester

Flourish 2020 . Paulette Bansal is a printmaker living and working in Manchester. Her work derives from observation and experiences in places frequented locally and further afield. The recorded narrative is often abstracted and then reconstructed. . ‘My approach to printmaking is experimental, intuitive and ordered all at the same time. I draw directly onto a plate to create and build up marks using adopted print processes etching, drypoint, carborundum, mono-print and more recently introducing elements of collage. The pieces I have submitted for this exhibition are from a closer look Bexley Square in Salford near the workshop where I print, plus is the home of the stately Salford Town Hall Building and famous site of the 1931 workers movement demonstration. I was naturally drawn in by the linear forms and blocks of single colour observed on a Saturday when all the shutters were down. I was compelled to revisit the site on a weekday to witness the transformations in the shop fronts when the shutters were open again. These repetitive sequences of the linear format provided the initial inspiration for this series of prints. The historical context of this Square inspired the introduction of red in ‘Chaos at Bexley Square’.’ ‘I have found that ‘a sense of place’ is where I always start from and when you are working towards exhibitions you have to focus on a specific body of work but would welcome time to explore without a deadline. . @paulette_bansal #FlourishAward #printmaking #etching #salford #manchester #mirfield #livingwithart #urbanlandscape

Flourish 2020 . Many of our Flourish shortlisted artists have been sharing their ‘lockdown’ spaces and current work. For some, their regular studio is still accessible, while for others a table top at home has to do. Thank you to Pam Grimmond for giving us a ‘behind the scenes’ look into her work space: . ‘It’s a small one up, one down, outbuilding in my garden, full of this and that, work to be framed, work in progress and bits of things which are always a comfort and inspiration to have around, reflecting memories and connections. Downstairs is the printing space, which also houses bicycles, washing machine, and a small shower room. Upstairs is a calmer space, where I have my worktable and small bed settee for the occasional guest. . 'Printmaking lies at the heart of my practice: ideas are explored through drawings, layered on transparent papers. Through lithography and drypoint, drawings are translated into imaginary spaces, evoking emotions and experiences. The slow process and tactile nature of drawing onto the limestone becomes a contemplative act, a place for thinking, while the physical act of scoring into aluminium, copper or zinc, evokes a contrasting sense of speed and movement through the city.’ . www.pamgrimmond.co.uk @grimmondpam #FlourishAward #printmaking #livingwithart #lifeinlockdown #yorkshire

Flourish 2020 . Pam Grimmond is based in North Yorkshire and a couple of years ago completed an MA in printmaking at Camberwell College of Arts, London. Much of her work explores ideas through drawing and layering transparent papers, which are then refined and resolved in to exquisite prints using drypoint and lithography.  Her recent art work has been inspired by the urban environment: ‘My work interprets and reflects the spaces of the city. Architecture acts as a means to explore and articulate ideas about space. The practice of psychogeography is a method for gathering information, generating an awareness that has the Situationists’ derive, or purposeful walk, as its historical frame of reference. 'My work stems directly from a physical engagement with the spaces of the city and ties into ideas around memory, time and perception. It reflects the experience of moving through architectural space, where sudden glimpses and partial views lend significance to previously unnoticed aspects. Facades of city buildings develop abstract qualities. Unexpected spaces within a city often reveal older, forgotten stories. Their narratives have been interrupted, sometimes forcibly, yet remnants still remain, unconnected to newer neighbours. The city does not fit neatly together; there is a discontinuity in the urban fabric. In its relentless state of flux, it appears random and chaotic. The familiar is rendered unfamiliar, creating new perspectives and realities. There is sometimes a sense of disorientation or vertigo in the precarious and unreal landscapes, a turning inside out of the safe and familiar.’ www.pamgrimmond.co.uk #printmaking #FlourishAward #yorkshire #urban #lithography #livingwithart #drawing #drypoint @grimmondpam

Flourish 2020 . Lucy May Schofield has extensive experience in printmaking, making editions and book works and leading workshops around the UK. Her practice includes performance, and residencies at Hospitalfield, Kala Art Institute, NES in Iceland and VARC in Northumberland have informed a collaborative approach to research and developed an exploration in durational work in combination with printmaking. . Her works are held in public and private collections including Tate Britain, Yale Centre for British Art, Stanford University, Chelsea College of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University, State Library of Queensland and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Recent projects have been presented at Art Toronto, The London Art Fair and The University of Hawaii, where she was joint-recipient of the Awagami Paper Prize. . lucymayschofield.com @lucymayschofield #printmaking #performance #landscape #FlourishAward

Flourish 2020 . Lucy May Schofield makes beautiful prints characterised by a thorough knowledge and skilful manipulation of materials, especially paper, combined with an affinity for, and immersion in, landscape. . ‘In collaboration with the expansive landscape and dark skies of Northumberland, I mark seasonal shifts with paper, ink, wood and silk to connect and convene with nature. Observing the way in which time behaves in remote and rural places has resonated in ritualistic acts of making. Meditating on the earth’s rotation, the phases of the moon and our relationship to light and time inspire performative acts in the landscape documented through printmaking, video, stitch and installation. In turning our attention to the temporal, the work seeks to commune with nature and our relationship to transience and impermanence. I am interested in belonging and dislocation, remoteness and ritual, separation and intimacy, time and impermanence, isolation and migration, repetition and remembrance, stillness and light, silence and rhythm, pilgrimage and place.’ . ‘After graduating from London College of Printing in 2002, I was awarded a two-year funded residency at Manchester School of Art, where I also worked as an Associate Lecturer until 2010. In 2011 I relocated to Japan, where my interest in printmaking developed. As joint recipient of a British Council Development award in 2015, I initiated a collaborative project at IMPACT 9 Printmaking Conference in China. The project travelled to Southern Graphics Conference International (SGCI) in Portland, USA in 2016. Later that year I was awarded a one-year residency with VARC (Visual Artists in Rural Communities), in a remote part of Northumberland where I am still currently based.’ . http://www.lucymayschofield.com/ @lucymayschofield #FlourishAward #printmaking #paper #landscape #japan #mokuhanga

Flourish 2020 . Lucie MacGregor is a mixed-media artist from Huddersfield and has recently completed her BA in Fine Art at Central St Martins in London. Her practice extends across a variety of materials and media, including silkscreen and relief print, ceramics, cast wax and concrete. She approaches making with an experimental playfulness combined with conceptual inquiry. She might print on objects or flat supports, re-configuring and re-placing them; use natural pigments to infuse plaster surfaces, draw and sculpt marks which become parts of a sensory sculptural installation; or devise performative actions in response to particular spaces: ‘imbuing the invisible features of our lives into reconstructed realities’. . During ‘lockdown’ Lucie’s bedroom has become her studio as she continues to draw, paint and collage without the usual freedoms to create. More of her work, including videos, can be found here: www.luciemacgregor.com https://vimeo.com/317277960 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYGBIm8lL7w @lucie_macgregor #FlourishAward #printmaking #contemporaryart #collage #Huddersfield

Flourish 2020 . ‘I have an instinctive and immediate pull towards the forgotten peripheries, below our feet and above our reach, the urban debris of objects that passively exist there and to fuse them into reincarnated remains of a prolonged creative process, with their fragments left exposed. I encourage the cracks to show, revealing the ‘untold’ bubbling beneath the surface, as the Anthropocene shapes and bears upon the earth.’ . Lucie MacGregor works in printmaking, sculpture, video and performance. She playfully ‘breaks the rules’ and mixes up physical materials and conceptual ideas, collaging found objects and crafted artworks. The attachment of one form to another is a recurring notion in her installations: ‘the latched encounter, the parasitical, leeching from one plain to its neighbouring edge; interlinking two previously separated autonomies into a hybridised collection. A frisson between the real and illusionary.’ . 'Objects are buried in concrete, cradled and hung from teetering supports, nestled into the edges and bulges of protruding surfaces. The ecological body is presented on the cusp of collapse, with pavements dissected into jigsaw pieces and casts of urban detritus pushing up from below. I am interested in processes of deterioration and material behaviour, the vulnerable and the delicate, ‘cut-offs’ becoming prevalent in the sculptures I create.’ . @lucie_macgregor www.luciemacgregor.com #FlourishAward #printmaking #contemporaryart #mixedmedia #Huddersfield #mirfield

Flourish 2020 @louise_garman completed her degree in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art in the mid-1970s, with more recent study at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. She has exhibited her work in group and solo shows in the UK, France and Sweden, and has been an active member of neo:artists and Cross Street Arts over the past few years. As well as creating a diverse output in printmaking, photography, sculpture and installation, Louise is a professional mural artist. Her experimental and intuitive approach to making gallery-based work is informed by an immediate connection with physical places and a process of collecting objects and images. Repeating, layering and juxtaposing contrasting elements, she has ‘…subconsciously… focused on life and death. And the earth turning round and round, in constant motion...’ #printmaking #contemporaryart #urbanedge #screenprinting #walking #FlourishAward