Inside worlds

29 June – 29 July, 2017

An exhibition of four exceptionally talented printmakers, Yoko Akino, Niamh Flanagan, Clare Henderson and Aoife Scott. The resulting artworks explore and connect us to a printed world of research, memory, isolation, escape, emotion and surreal imaginings.

Yoko Akino‘s inspiration for these colourful etchings stems from the idea that inside every building, every house and apartment, people live in their own worlds. Behind every window, in the plane that flies overhead, in the minds of her children, unique experiences unfold, our emotions, our hopes and fears, unique yet connected on this planet we share. The prints speak of emotions, perceptions, differences and connections, creating a half-real world that is both familiar and fantastical.

Niamh Flanagan’s work creates landscapes describing an inner world which is both familiar and surreal. She explores utopias and the search for spaces to dream within our worlds, creating a visual language of recurrent motifs and themes to express these ideas. This is a printed world where darkness and volatility is juxtaposed with lightness, growth and a wry twist of humour. The collage pieces become a world within this printed world, where elements of different prints and proofs can meet and repeat, creating new narratives and juxtapositions.

Inspired by the history of exploration, current migration and climate change, Clare Henderson is making artwork visually based on The Antarctic landmass and its surrounding seas and wildlife. Giuseppe Suaria, a researcher and photographer from The Italian Institute of Marine Sciences, has circumnavigated Antarctica as part of the project ‘Arctic Circumnavigation Expedition’ (A.C.E.) on the Russian ice-breaker ‘Akademik Tryoshnikov’. A.C.E. measures the impact of environmental changes and pollution in the Southern Ocean. Suaria shared his work with Henderson as a kind of virtual exploration of the Antarctic. Using these photographs as inspiration, and combining stories and research of the area, Henderson highlights climate change whilst discussing more personal elements of the human condition.

Aoife Scott‘s practice is concerned with the exploration of derelict houses and buildings. These lonely forgotten spaces with their sense of history and abandonment, hold intrigue for Scott. The strong feeling of the memories that these structures contain is something that constantly nurtures her imagination. Through research she has uncovered stories and memories of the people that once lived in these buildings, sometimes finding echoes of her own and her family’s past. This merging of memories is an important part of Scott’s work. Through the printing process, her use of reductive mark making and colour, Scott transforms these forgotten spaces into a sensitive celebration of memory.

Click on the thumbnails below to see some of the works.
More images and details to follow…