Solar Etching

These etchings come from places I keep going back to – the South Downs, the Sussex coast, wild Scottish islands. There’s something about returning to the same landscape over and over. You notice different things – the light changes, memories of the place start to blend with what’s actually there.

People walked these paths thousands of years ago and they left things behind – dew ponds, causeways, old tracks. Sometimes when I’m working on a woodland scene or the sea with birds, I think about how someone standing in that exact spot centuries ago would have seen something similar. Maybe not identical, but close. We’re connected to them through these images, through the same stories and myths that come from these places.

Solar plate etching feels almost dreamlike. You use sunlight (or UV lamp) and water – no harsh chemicals poisoning anything. The steel plates have a light-sensitive coating. After processing, I ink each one by hand, wipe it, then press it onto dampened paper using a traditional etching press. Sometimes I paint the paper first, so the painting and the print become one thing.

Each limited edition goes through about 14 steps from the first idea to the finished, framed piece and I touch every part of it. This slow process – making plates, tearing paper edges, painting, inking, printing – it becomes almost meditative. You go deeper into your own vision of the place. Because everything’s done by hand, each print has its own subtle differences, its own personality. I call them variable editions. The imperfections are beautiful and they’re part of it.

Monotype

Monotypes are completely unique – unrepeatable moments in ink and paint. I work in layers, transferring marks from acetate onto paper, sometimes by hand, sometimes through the press. Building up and discovering. Once it’s printed, those marks are gone, wiped away. Each one exists only once – a moment captured and made permanent.

Painting

Losing myself in painting is pure joy. It’s this magical thing where looking and memory merge together. It doesn’t need to justify itself or serve any purpose beyond just being. Adding paint, scraping it off – there’s a push and pull to it, a struggle to connect more deeply with the landscapes I love. I’ll never get tired of that. What I’m really searching for is my own language in paint, something that goes beyond just describing what I see. Something more felt, more remembered, more imagined.