Some thoughts about my prints
For an idea to be taken into the printing stage, it has to be strong enough to allocate the time and resources into creating a limited edition. I have general themes which occur again and again. I go with my heart and try to listen to it carefully when I feel myself straying into something that does not personally move me. It is easier said than done; digging deep into our feelings, trying to be authentic, creating from a place of vulnerability, come at a personal cost.
There is a constant inner process of exploring my motives, my outcomes. It is not simply self-criticism, which is also there. It is rather a way of maintaining a course, a belief in the value of art as a way of adding meaning to our daily lives. My lofty ideals are not always fully realised, but I keep on searching and trying to create something of personal and if possible shared meaning/value/catharsis, call it what you will.
I was asked a few times about whether it is important for people to understand my work. I think that question has to be answered individually by those who look at my work and invest in it, emotionally and fiscally. For my part, I decided from the outset to make work that is important to me. People that see the value in that will eventually give it a home and space in their homes and hopefully in their conversations. I hope they will pass on these works to their loved ones. An artwork has many lives, as we know. That is the remarkable power of it, the enduring quality of something created with love, first, purpose second. It exists primarily to nourish us, our feelings. Is that important enough when the physical world is so troubled? Again, it is a personal decision and one best answered by others. I simply make art, because it is my way, perhaps my most effective way to confront and deal with the world, and to survive it intact.
Limited edition prints are a means of expression but also an integral part of my artistic work and their sale helps to support and strengthen my practice. For that I am eternally grateful for the existence of the Leicester Print Workshop, where I am based some of the time and where most of my limited editions are printed. We should celebrate and value such institutions and do our utmost to preserve them and enable them to continue. Our lives would be poorer without them and the cultural landscape of the country would be less green, less beautiful.