Cumbrian Landscapes – Stuart Wilkie

18 September – 22 December 2024

Cumbria is fortunate to have some of the most beautiful and dramatic landscape in England. These prints have arisen from careful observations and sketches . Water, weather, nature and man are dominant forces in taming and shaping this iconic landscape but geological time is the ultimate sculptor

Wood Engraving Prints

Wood engravings are visual poems drawn in light. The pieces of end grain wood on which the blocks are carved are typically small as the dense wood of the box tree rarely grows to any great size. The shape of the blocks may also influence the design.

Lino Prints

Lino is a versatile synthetic but ultimately biodegradable material (linseed oil, cork dust and an industrial process).It has the advantage of being available in larger pieces and therefore capable of printing large relief prints.

Stuart Wilkie – Printmaker

Stuart uses his printmaking to explore imagery from the natural world, inspired by nature and landscape. He enjoys wood engraving using his 1868 Albion Press. This enables him to reveal the images of nature, rendered tonally and with simple clarity, as other artists have done since the eighteenth century.

Lino printing enables Stuart to design bold images printed with tone and colour, to evoke images that seem timeless in their design.

The 1868 Albion Press

The press I use is called an Albion and can be seen in Studio 2D. Built in 1868 the design of platten press cannot be beaten by anything more modern when it comes to printing the end grain blocks. Very much in keeping with the era of the Mill and Victorian Engineering it has a comfortable presence in the Studio here at Farfield Mill