Competition Graduates Linocut Member Mono-print Printmaking

Gradspotters Prospects | Lee Nutland

posted by Robyn Pitts November 1, 2023

Applications are currently open to join our brand new platform, Gradspotters; a distinctive place dedicated to discovering and championing emerging talent in the world of print and design. Each submission we receive at Gradspotters represents the bold ambition, dedication, and creativity of emerging artists. Perks of the platform include mentorship and support, showcases across our socials and blog, and features in our printed magazine.

Below, we take a look at one of the awesome graduates who has applied so far, and hope to inspire you do the same! Lee Nutland is a South-West UK based artist and printmaker who is inspired by the countryside around him; its history, its stories, and our ever-changing relationship with it.

Through his work, Lee highlights the fragility of that which is perceived to be permanent. With an experimental approach, Lee combines elements of monoprint within the relief printmaking process, building layers of tone and texture to capture the atmosphere and emotions experienced when in the presence of the subject matter. With a focus on prehistoric stone monuments, Lee considers their place in the landscape and human consciousness, and how that relates to current attitudes towards the environment and the human experience. He tells us; “Through the act of walking in the landscape I create a connection to those who have gone before and consider the passage of time, our place in history and the finite nature of existence.”

His work, I Can’t Feel Your Arms Around Me Anymore, is named after a line from an Emma Ruth Rundle song, Body. “It’s a song that explores and confronts the grief she experienced following the death of her grandmother, it resonates with me deeply as the sudden loss of my own grandmother when I was 15 profoundly affected me,” states the printmaker. By interrogating core themes of fragility and loss throughout his MA studies at UWE, Lee came to realise that this grief is still present and underlies all of his work. Using a standing stone from the Stanton Drew Stone Circles as a motif, he highlights the fragility of things and ideas that appear to be so embedded in our lives that they seem permanent. Lee comments; “The effort put in by the builders to move these stones into place suggests that they were once incredibly important to communities and their beliefs. But the monuments now sit quietly in a field just four miles from Bristol, ruined, and relatively overlooked, their original purpose now lost to time.”

Heavily diluted ink, applied as a monoprint, suggests a sense of transparency and temporality at odds with the solidity and permanence of the subject matter. The off-set ghost printed layers echo an out of focus photograph, as if the stone has shifted, or a memory that is not quite as clear as it once was.

Are you a recent graduate? Apply here to forge your future in the industry and start your extraordinary journey with us!