Taking place from 11 – 14 November at the newly refurbished Fireworks Factory at London’s historic Royal Arsenal heritage site, Woolwich, Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair is back for 2021 with its sixth edition. Bringing together 1000 original artworks from over 500 artists, big names and top galleries, WCPF21 is the perfect opportunity to #FindArtThatFits.
WCPF celebrates every aspect of printmaking; from etching and lithography, to woodblock and screen printing, exciting emerging talent sits alongside established practitioners. Their accompanying programme of activities and events led by industry experts offer visitors of all ages an insight into the practice of printmaking and what to look for when starting to build their own collection.
Below, we check out some of the incredible prints that will be exhibited by members of our Official POP community.
Roz Edenbrow
After first visiting WCPF two years ago to see her friend Jonathan Lawes’ work, Roz Edenbrow was completely overwhelmed by the breadth of printmaking on show; “I loved the energy and variety of work on show in such a vast space. I wanted to be involved!” For WCPF21 Roz, an experimental and process-led printmaker, will be exhibiting her piece, Cascade. For this series of prints, Roz drew inspiration from collected pen tester pages from stationery shops in London. The works explore how the layering of these impulsive marks creates something beautiful and collaborative.
Emma Studd
WCPF21 will be Emma Studd’s third year exhibiting at the fair. She comments; “For me it’s one of the highlights of the print year and I love to see fellow printmakers and their work in the space”. Emma’s work is bold, geometric, and graphic, using the process of screen printing to create mostly one-off contemporary prints. Her pieces are inspired by mathematical geometry, repeated patterns, and Optical Art. Her current projects explore the overlaying of colour and composition using just only one polygon; the hexagon.
Anna Wingfield
Hailing from Los Angeles, Anna Wingfield discovered WCPF through her community of printmakers. “Working in a medium (monotypes) that can be unfamiliar to some, it felt incredibly special to have a fair dedicated to all things print,” describes Anna. Her work is inspired by moments made up of emotion and movement, be that trying to preserve a memory or linking a unique colour or gesture to that feeling. For WCPF21 Anna will be showing a black and white piece that is distinct from the colourful palettes she normally uses. In Nature Knows Anna works with black ink to focus on creating new movement and texture, highlighting the copper plate’s natural wear and tear from repetitive use. The monotype is inspired by the beautiful progression of decay and how it can be displayed in patterns, textures, and shapes.
Nicole Rose
“WCPF, for me, is the most exciting contemporary Fair showcasing print. I like its ethos and inclusivity of a wide variety of print techniques from artists across the globe,” says artist Nicole Rose. Nicole creates abstract and ethereal pieces inspired by landscapes which she responds to on canvas or digitally. COALESCENCE, the piece that Nicole will be exhibiting for WCPF21, is inspired by the time she spent walking in a local nature reserve during (and post) lockdown. The piece reflects the morning light catching the trees, as well as Nicole’s thoughts and feelings whilst walking.
Johannah Muriel
Johannah Muriel describes WCPF as a “total highlight of the year”, and loves the support it provides for emerging artists and female printmakers in particular. Her mixed-media studies are concerned with paint and colour forming organically as paper emerges through the printing press. Johannah’s prints are the result of instinctive reactions to mainly natural references; inspiration taken from nature, everyday life or beauty found in decaying objects discarded by others. This year, Johannah will be exhibiting four works; Sundown, a reflection of her subconscious reacting to missing the sun and being trapped indoors all of last year; Drift, an abstract landscape inspired by all the nature Johannah was observing and appreciating throughout lockdown; and Origin and Formations, organic shapes built-up in multiple layers using hand-embroidery as a major compositional feature rather than relying on it solely for embellishment.
Jemma Gunning
Jemma Gunning has been exhibiting with WCPF since it started, finding it an amazing opportunity to “connect with printy folk”. Jemma’s etchings and lithographs are raw, gritty, and expressive. She uses these processes to capture an atmospheric quality that derelict places contain. The way acids erode a substrate mimics the natural decay that’s happening in the spaces she finds herself exploring. The works being shown at WCPF21 are a continuation into her research of abandoned industrial locations. They act as records of fleeting moments in time where nature has started to reclaim what once was a thriving industrial space. Although Jemma’s work may appear dark and gloomy on the surface, the decaying structures are, in fact, beaming with life where new ecosystems are thriving out of our discarded waste lands.
Theadora Ballantyne-Way
By exhibiting her work at WCPF, Theadora Ballantyne-Way hopes to show how interesting Polymer Photogravure can be in front of an audience of printmakers, reflecting how it can almost look like a real photograph but the original textures and marks of print make it into an extraordinary art form. “I want my spectator to take a second glance when they look at my work,” describes Theadora. Theadora is a Surrealist artist who dreams big; re-imagining the everyday and revolutionising the mundane. Within her work, mundane utensils become monumental industrial components; a transformation that elevates them into objects of aesthetic consideration and bizarre emblems of middle-class terror. Theadora’s enlargement of these objects is not a critique of consumer habits, but a celebration of the surreal; a playful conceit on the rich history of the English pastoral.
Susan Vera Clarke
For WCPF21 Susan Vera Clarke will be showing two Multiplate Etchings with combinations of soft ground, sugar lift, and water-bitten aquatints. Susan has been closely connected with WCPF since 2016, with print studio she works for, East London Printmakers, sponsoring the show ever year. The two prints she is exhibiting, They Remembering Us and She Stopped and Whispered, are part of a wider body of work that explores how Machine Learning is assisting in coral reef restoration and species classification. Susan has been collaborating with a pHD research student from UCL, Fernando Perez-Garcia, who’s been generating some incredible AI images/video graphics from coral reef data sets. Essentially, the work is about recognising the fundamental rules that Machine Learning techniques use to train models/generate images and likening them to our own human sensory process of understanding images. Susan states; “I think there’s a slight stigma attached to the term AI and I think a lot of people are scare of it. For me, I just hope this body of work helps inform people a little better”.
Agata Rawecka
WCPF21 will be Agata Rawecka’s third time exhibiting at the fair; “I love the gallery space and the event is very professionally organised, it’s super inspiring to have the possibility to see so many great printmakers in one place”. This year, the expressionistic printmaker will be exhibiting Soul Portrait; a monotype screen print inspired by the book Czuła przewodniczka by Polish psychologist Natalia de Barbaro. Agata describes; “I wanted to reveal something invisible to the eyes, something that defines our existence, in contrast to the material things that the modern world focuses on”.
Browse more WCPF21 exhibitors here.
WCPF21 will also be going online from 11-28 November.
Purchase tickets for the fair here.
Check out more work by the members of our POP community and apply to become a Verified POP Member at www.members.peopleofprint.com.
Want to know more about our membership? Give us an email at members@peopleofprint.com.
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