A print created using the mokuhanga technique (Japanese water based woodblock print) hand burnished with a baren on 110 gsm Shiramine Select Japanese washi (30% Kozo) with deckle edges.
Edition size: 1 (mono)
Image size: 210 x 297 mm
Paper size: 210 x 297 mm
Price: for sale by silent auction (ends at the closing event on 21st April 2023)
The Northam gasholders have been a significant feature of Southampton’s skyline since the early 1900’s with the first one built in 1909 and the second in 1935. Demolition started in late 2022 to make way for a major redevelopment providing new apartments on this site next to the Southampton Football Club stadium. I have often passed by these skeletal steel structures silhouetted against the moon; a strangely sublime and memorable sight.
My print seeks to memorialise the distinct structure of the older Northam gasholder, silhouetted against a twilight blue sky and a full moon and has been created in response to the open call by ‘a space’ arts for submissions to celebrate International Women’s Day 2023. There will be a silent auction of artworks by female identifying and non-binary artists, and a six week exhibition at their flagship venue, God’s House Tower (GHT) in Southampton. I took part in this worthy event last year with my woodcut ‘Solent Green’ which raised £30 for the Yellow Door, a Southampton-based charity that prevents and responds to domestic and sexual abuse.
The artworks will be exhibited at GHT from 8th March – 16th April, launching on International Women’s Day. As last year, visitors will be able to bid in a silent auction to buy any of the works. Bidding will open at the launch event on 8th March. For each artwork sold 50% of the proceeds will go to the artist who made the work and 50% will be donated to Yellow Door.
The artist who has inspired my print is Lucy May Schofield (b.1979), a British artist passionate about the Japanese water based woodblock printmaking technique ‘mokuhanga’. Her prints explore the passing of time through seasonal changes in the natural light of the sky, including images of the moon, using the white colour of the ‘washi’ paper to create a strong contrast with expansive skies of tranquil blues. Through Lucy’s inspirational teaching my mokuhanga journey begins; exploring the depiction of natural light on the permanent and impermanent.
For the print I used two plates of Shina plywood, one for the sky and one for the gasholder structure. I used Winsor and Newton professional water colours (Prussian blue and Cerulean blue) and Sumi ink, nori paste as the carrier, and damp Awagami Factory Shiramine Select washi paper. As this is a bleed print I could not use a precise registration technique (such as the traditional kento technique) so it was only really practical to do one pass of colour for the sky (I did try a second pass but it was difficult to achieve consistency and prevent the paper slipping as I needed to keep it on the plate, lifting one half at a time to do the second pass, to maintain the registration. However I did manage two passes for the structure in Sumi ink to achieve a deeper black colour.
Kay A Brown 