Cross Currents: The Work Of Michelle Keegan & Elizabeth Walker

Michelle Keegan, 'Still Navigating 10', Zinc Etching, (Date Unknown).

I spent some more productive hours over at Leicester Print Workshop, the other day -  bringing my current run of screen prints to some kind of conclusion.  I’ll write more about them soon, but this post is about another important aspect of using such a communal facility.  Apart from the obvious benefits of working in a well equipped print studio, it was always my hope that becoming a member might allow me to gain inspiration or shared insights from other artists working or exhibiting there, and to break free of my often, slightly insular art activities, from time to time.  This appears to be paying off already.

Michelle Keegan, 'Still Navigating' Series Of Etchings At Leicester Print Workshop, June 2016

One instance is my discovery of the work of Michelle Keegan, - a Nottingham-based artist previously unfamiliar to me, through the simple expedient of her work being on display in the Workshop’s public project area.  My eye was immediately drawn to her nominally abstract, square format etchings, not least because of their nuanced sophistication and appealing formal qualities.

Michelle Keegan, 'Still Navigating 8', Zinc Etching, (Date Unknown)

Michelle Keegan, 'Still Navigating 6', Zinc Etching, (Date Unknown)

Michelle's prints are comprised of, amongst other things, complex networks of irregular marks, overlapping grids of varying regularity, and accumulating layers or screens of fluctuating density. Overall, they display a pleasing tension between the geometric and the organic, and manage to be simultaneously simple (formally), and full of complex detail.  They alongside their spare formality, they also demonstrate an all-over mode of composition, and a commitment to the notion of variation within a standard format.  These are all things with which I’m engaged, to a greater or lesser extent, in my own current work.

Michelle Keegan, 'Still Navigating 12', Zinc Etching, (Date Unknown)

It appears that Michelle’s inspiration comes from her memories and impressions of Romney Marsh (in Kent), although the work itself is a largely synthetic, almost entirely abstract distillation of any kind of landscape experience - and is all the better for it, in my view.  Whilst I've had no opportunity to meet Michelle, or to discuss her work at first hand, her block of images on show at LPW have certainly opened my eyes to some of the abstract potential of print media, and confirmed some of my own current ideas about the presentation of a body of work, too.  Anyway, you can judge the work for yourself, by visiting her website, here.

Elizabeth Walker, From: 'Tower Blocks' Series, Cyanotype & Screen Print, (Title & Date Unknown)

On a more face-to-face level, I’ve also enjoyed the company of a couple of other Saturday regulars on more than one occasion now.  One of these, Elizabeth Walker, turns out to be an artist with whom I share a slightly spooky abundance of common visual interests.  Elizabeth is another of that extensive band of artist/educators, and an experienced printmaker – who is based in Northamptonshire.  She also has a website, where you can view her work, here.

Elizabeth Walker, From: 'New Town', Screen Print, (Date Unknown)

Elizabeth Walker, From: 'Tramps Trolleys' Series, (Details Unknown)

Having looked over each other’s shoulders a couple of times, it quickly became obvious we share an enthusiasm for many of the same varieties of urban imagery, - including elements of signage, Modernist architecture, and the surfaces, details and geometries of the built environment.  It amused me to discover we’d both latched onto the noble shopping trolley as a motif at some point, and that Elizabeth clearly demonstrates a similar relish for the inconsequential, or easily overlooked, as my own.  Also, as part of a general enjoyment of the patterns of half-tone reproduction, etc. - it appears that we’ve both independently hit on the notion of stenciling patterns of dots and discs over given portions of an image.  The relationship translation between photographic, mechanically reproduced, and hand-made imagery; and the whole area of 'process' can hardly be ignored either.

Elizabeth Walker, 'Harlow Clock', Screen Print, (Date Unknown)

  

These little things can mean so much and, rather than feeling miffed that someone else may have got there ahead of (or better than) me, - I'm just happy to have some of my own hunches and visual sensibilities validated in such a way.  Mostly, it just makes me want to crack on with loads more print-related work.

Elizabeth Walker, From: 'Coastal Signage' Series, Screen Print, (Date Unknown)

I’ve certainly been impressed by the freedom with which Elizabeth layers and repeats different motifs, - often building up impressively large composite images in the process, and the way she seems happy to exploit the processes of screen printing, and to riff on a combination of motifs without getting overly hung-up by the limitations of ‘correct’ procedure, in any stilted or technically constipated manner.  Speaking as someone just starting out on a journey as a printmaker, this definitely feels like the kind of attitude one might usefully aspire to.

Elizabeth Walker, Photographs Of Disused Little Chef Diner, (Details Unknown)

Sometimes the coincidences just keep coming, and as well as discussing our appreciation of the work of such artists as Christiane Baumgartner, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, etc. we also discovered a shared love for a particular, obscure landmark of ‘lost’ Modernism by the side of the A1, in South Yorkshire.  The dramatic curved geometry of this feature, (being actually the curved canopy of a Little Chef diner), is something I clearly remember from family car journeys many years ago.  I’ve talked before about how the passing of such architectural tropes seems to symbolise the dismantling of the very world I was born into, and I had a bit of a pang when Elizabeth kindly emailed me some of her impressive photos of this one. 

Most of the above images remain copyright Michelle Keegan and Elizabeth Walker.  (Let me know if you want them removed, Michelle and Liz).

Postscript:

Following Three Images: West Leicester, June 2016

The day after my most recent exchange with Elizabeth, I came across this abandoned shopping trolley (complete with Beuysian contents), just metres from my front door.  It never ceases to amaze me how things join up sometimes.  They're not the best photos I'll ever take, but you can have these on me in return, Liz.