University for the Creative Arts   2007/2008

Cathy Bird

This has been an unlooked-for opportunity to expand on my previous work. My weekly print room session became a stable point in my life, giving me the motivation to continue. I consider the AA2A Programme a very worth-while endeavor. Long may it last! For me it has ensured that I continue to explore and expand the issues that pervade my work.

An exhibition offer from the website was an unlooked-for bonus and I have four works currently on show at the Lloyd Gill Gallery in Weston-super-Mare. This would never have happened without the AA2A scheme.

This work has been ongoing and exploratory rather than reaching any conceptual conclusion: an investigation of the print medium and its possibilities. My previous acquaintance with printing was sketchy, to say the least, and the recommendation to try dry-point on Perspex suited my drawing style and gave me a relatively fast method of producing images while retaining a draughtsman’s approach. I was particularly pleased by the fineness of line that was attainable by this method, yet in other prints, I was able to score more deeply and expressively at will.

My theme is still one of viewpoints on absence and presence, but more the presence of the viewer/creator and the act of seeing/ experiencing. Another concern is threads of vision and thought that we use to construct reality and which can screen us from seeing our present environment with clarity.

‘Screened’ Represents those moments of realization when you suddenly know that you were seeing life through a screen – finely woven from the infinitesimal threads of your own decisions and understanding. I wanted to show the screen starting to dissolve into what seems to be the light of understanding. It is particularly fascinating to explore the differences that inking can make to the same plate. I have only scratched the surface, but the AA2A experience has given me the impetus to continue.