Pressed into Place

I am a printmaker based in Somerset, creating work that responds to the quiet presence of the natural world. My practice is shaped by time spent outdoors — sensing, listening, and paying attention. I am most often still: watching how shadows shift through tree limbs; observing, close-up, the intricate details of lichens, fungi and bark; tracing the movement of wind through leaves; or waiting for a particular quality of light to land on a plate. These slow, immersive encounters with the landscape guide my work.

Much of my inspiration comes from ancient woodlands, coastal edges, holloways, and hedgerows — places where natural forms and human histories are deeply entangled. I draw outside, sometimes directly onto plates, and let the tactile memory of a place find its way into the marks I make.

Whilst walking is not central to my process, it remains a vital thread in my story. In 2020, I walked the 630-mile South West Coast Path alone over ten weeks. That experience marked a turning point in my creative and personal life — offering a space for recovery, reflection, and reconnection with the land. It deepened my commitment to making work that speaks to place: not just its appearance, but its emotional and sensory landscape.

I work primarily with collagraph printmaking, using materials such as card, textured papers, Polyfilla, glues, carborundum, and found natural objects. My plates are built slowly and intuitively, often incorporating textures gathered through direct contact with the land. I print onto a range of papers, using embossing, layering, chine collé and subtle inking to evoke texture, shadow, and atmosphere. 

Each series I create is grounded in a specific place — whether the ancient woodlands of Exmoor, the sea-battered coast path, or the iron-rich hills of the West Country. I’m drawn to the marks time leaves behind: twisted tree limbs, tangled hedgerows, lichen-covered stone, boundary walls, tidal scars. My work often sits between representation and abstraction — inviting the viewer to sense rather than see the land.

I believe printmaking can hold the layered stories of landscape. Through touch, repetition, and rhythm, I try to capture not just how a place looks, but how it feels to be within it — to pause, to trace, to lose yourself and find yourself again.