ijustwannamakenicethings: prints

Höch’s Made for a Party’ (1936) Collection of IFA, Stuttgart

So yesterday I decided to take a trip to London and see some exhibitions and gain some inspiration because I was feeling a bit ‘bleurgh’ about everything. Firstly I went to the Hannah Höch exhibition at Whitechapel gallery which I was bursting to go see. I have long been a big fan of the Dadaists work but have never seen it up close. The exhibition was well worth going to and a real insight into the issues that her photomontages address, some of the work I was familiar with but there was a wide range of things I hadn’t seen before. Seeing Hannah’s work up close you are really able to see her use of negative space, cutouts and creating a whole from very separate unrelated parts. Her work is rough and punchy but the components work together so delicately and her use of juxtaposition is on point.

I also noticed a few woodblock prints by Höch which really stuck with me. They didn’t look like prints, they looked like ink drawings, something which I had never tried when relief printing. Usually marks created by the tools are quite obvious and recognisable, but Höchs woodcuts create loose textured marks amongst precisely cut lettering. I had never seen a print up close that looked that much like a drawing.

All in all it’s well worth a visit if you can make it!

Höch’s Heads of State, 1918-20: ‘portly German politicians in their swimsuits floundering against a backdrop of fine embroidery’. Photograph: Collection of IFA, Stuttgart

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I then ventured to West Dulwich to The Dulwich Picture Gallery to see Hockney Printmaker. "This joyous show of his 60-year printmaking career reminds us that, for all his grumbles lately, David Hockney has been one of Britain's great artists - Alastair Smart, The Telegraph” I think this sums things up pretty well, Hockney is pretty amazing and the show did not disappoint. Despite being rather busy as it was half term it was amazing to see that although Hockney has such a long spanning printing career he never stopped experimenting. In each set of prints he explores something different and pushes the medium.
At the beginning of the exhibition we see a diploma that Hockney printed himself showing him and 4 fellow students crushed under the weight of the diploma, as he was threatened with failing after refusing to write his final essay saying that images were his medium not words.
One of my favourite series was the Weather series, a set of lithographs depicting different weather inspired by the representation go weather in japanese prints. You get a real sense of how the weather feels through how the imagery looks.

image from http://www.artvalue.com/auctionresult--hockney-david-1937-united-king-the-weather-series-6-2126253.htm

'Walking past two chairs' is a print in which Hockney screen printed onto the glass and frame surrounding the print, blurring the boundaries between the work and the viewer. Creating another dimension and offsetting the viewer and image.

Again well worth a visit even if it is a bit out of the way. Hockney’s drawings and constant experimentation are enough to get anyones creative justices flowing!

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I Also took a little trip to the V&A whilst in London, although it was half term it wasn’t as busy as I was expecting and was nice enough to have a little explore around. I did a few doodles and drawings, I wish I could just sit and draw stuff in London all day everyday. There not particular good or exciting but drawing from life is much more exciting and you gain more skills than drawing from an image.

Here’s a few bits and bobs.

Oh and I also popped into the shop to have a mooch around and found these cute patterned paper bags, the smallest was about 25p and the large was 45p I think. I have a thing for paper bags at the moment and these colours so it was a must. Also got a cute wooden geometric ruler which I couldn’t not buy!

Good purchase day!

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My first ever market...

OPEN.

Höch and Hockney