Jess Davies
Printmaking
Member Showcase Gallery, 13 February - 1 May (extended date)
There is nothing that both soothes and inspires my soul so much as walking the land…
I often make figurative prints of landscapes; but in this body of work I wanted to explore a way of expressing the landscape rather than a more faithful representational portrait. I wanted to experiment with feeling my way intuitively to shapes and colours that express a place.
Also, for years, since visiting the Northern Territories in Australia I have been looking at Indigenous Australian art. Supposedly it is the oldest unbroken tradition of art in the world. This is art that has been produced not as one person’s individual expression, but within the context of a tradition: ritual, where images and marks are symbols, teaching about the land, telling stories, myths, legends as part of ‘the Dreaming’ – spirits that brought all things into creation. In that way of seeing, the land is a living being.
I am especially interested in the work of contemporary indigenous Australian artists, who are bridging this ancient tradition with a fractured present. These include the artists Naata Nungurrayi, Yukultji Napangati and Rover Thomas.
I’ve borrowed, unfaithfully, from this tradition here. I am not part of it, of course, but there are ways of seeing that I’ve explored in these prints: using pattern, symbol, bird’s eye view.
The prints in this exhibition are all ‘reduction’ linocut prints. This means when I lay down one colour onto the paper, I cut away areas of the lino where I want that colour to remain visible on the paper, then lay down the next colour, and so on.
My intention was to try and capture something of the colours and surface of the moor in the ink, so in some prints I have printed ‘wet on wet’ – that is, instead of waiting for one colour layer to dry before applying the next, I’ve deliberately put the next colour onto a wet ink layer, not quite knowing what was going to happen.
Images: Work by indigenous Australian artsts, Naata Nungurrayi, Yukultji Napangati and Rover Thomas
Exhibition Tour
“I both love and hate what I call ‘The Big Reveal’…
…it usually doesn't come out looking like what you expect. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse, sometimes it's just different, and that's always very exciting. There's a sense of something happening that's not in your control; the land of happy accident.”
All of the pieces in this exhibition are for sale as Craft and Collect only. You’ll find the prices in the image caption. If you would like to make a purchase please call us on 01626 832223 or email us at devonguild@crafts.org.uk.
Jess Davies talks about her Member Showcase
“For a long time I’ve felt the desire to engage in ever more simple shapes and colours. Still working with landscape but going that extra step into a different language of shape and colour which is perhaps not even recognisable as a particular landscape.”
Learn more about Jess Davies the Printmaker
“I still have dreams about this safari I did for 3 weeks in the desert, travelling around in a group and sleeping out on the desert floor and looking up at the sky and seeing all the stars in completely different places. There’s something about this incredibly ancient landscape that I found deeply moving. “
Learn about the printmaking process…
How do you create a reduction linocut print?
Jess takes us through how she creates her reduction lino cuts with some very special tools including her favourite spoon. The print she is creating in the videos can be seen in this exhibition.
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
The ‘wet-on-wet’ printmaking process
Jess welcomes us into her studio in the run up to her exhibition. Here she introduces the ‘wet-on’wet’ printing process.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3