Rosey Prince: ‘From City to the Sea’

About

This sparsely populated region between two rivers, the Thames and the Medway, has a complicated mix of industrial and literary history as well as being an important natural wetland area.  So close to London it is always a knife’s edge away from major development and yet has not changed very much (apart from the odd power station or gas silo) in centuries.

I am fascinated by this desolate yet hauntingly beautiful landscape and the uneasy relationship between the semi-rural and semi-industrial.  These are the margins and edgelands the anonymous overlooked corners that are unremarkable and commonplace, so ordinary they are immediately familiar and recognisable.  

Many of the prints have been made using both additive and reductive  mezzotint.  The additive method exploits the marks and textures created by the mezzotint rocker and contrasts with the more traditional reductive method.  The somewhat laborious process of making the mezzotint plate and the painstaking scraping and burnishing back to create the image seems to me in some way to reflect the subject matter of continual building up and destruction and erosion.

Primarily a printmaker working in etching, drypoint and mezzotint, I have been a studio holder in Lewisham Arthouse artists’ co-operative since 1998 and a member of Artichoke Printmakers since 2010.   I have been teaching printmaking in adult education for 20 years, including Community Education Lewisham and more recently City Lit Institute as well as a Printing without a Press class from my studio. I have work in private and public collections both in the UK and internationally.

All welcome.