Who I am

Maddie Rock is an artist-printmaker living and working in Somerset. Born in Bradford, Maddie’s love of the outdoors started in her childhood explorations across the city wastelands discovering wildflowers and ladybirds. She later studied Art Foundation at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, London and gained a Bachelor of Fine Art degree specializing in sculpture and printmaking from the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford.

Maddie has had a varied and creative career in design, teaching and horticulture. She left employment with National Trust to focus on her work as an artist just before the pandemic hit.

How I do

Maddie spends much of her time in the outdoors drawing inspiration from the landscape. Working in various media including pen and ink, watercolour, charcoal and coloured graphite, she endeavours to capture the sense of being in that place in that moment. Whether that’s looking down from cliff tops to a churning sea below, catching the long shadow-cast of a dead tree in the early morning light or following the line of the coastal path stretching away on the other side of a combe.

“Working outdoors stimulates all your senses – not just sight. I find myself listening, touching and smelling as well as looking. I love texture and am forever collecting leaves, lichen and seaweed to take home to press. Back in the studio, I work from my drawings to create collagraph plates. Using dried plant matter along with all sorts of other textured papers and fabrics I hope to create prints that recapture that sense of place and the experience of being there.”