Carys Bailey is a printmaker from Cape Town, South Africa. She creates original, limited edition linocut prints and monoprints, which are all handmade and hand pressed in her home studio. With two degrees in psychology, Carys uses her artworks to fund important initiatives in South Africa. So far her work has provided funds for an anti-gender based violence initiative, mental health campaigns and a learning programme at a children’s hospital.
She started printmaking in May 2020, with no training she learnt the craft by seeing what other printmakers were doing on Instagram. Carys is constantly working to learn new printmaking techniques and has enjoyed success both at exhibiting and selling, with her prints having made their way to several countries around the world.
Taking inspiration from the world around her, Carys describes; “South Africa is a beautiful and diverse country full of interesting people, landscapes and animals, I use these incredible surroundings to inform what I create“. Her work makes use of warm colours such as yellow, orange, red and gold, in combination with black and white figures. She explains; “I don’t really like to restrict myself to a particular style – I’d rather be constantly exploring“. After beginning her foray in printmaking with linocut, she has recently branched out into making monoprints (and a combination of lino and monoprints) through exploration using glass, ink and water. Her prints usually start with a concept which matches the charity she would like to support. In the case of linocuts, from there, the idea is sketched and transferred to the linoblock. “I like to have quite a good idea of what I’m planning on carving before I start so quite a bit of planning goes into the creation of a linoprint” desribes the printmaker. She also cuts her blocks up into different sections so that she can use more colours without wasting lino. From here, her blocks are inked up and burnished by hand using a printmaking baren or a mug. In the case of monoprints, the process of creating is somewhat less restricted and is a bit more of a surprise.
Her prints are currently exhibited at Art is Art Gallery (160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town), and The Cook Sisters Gallery (59 Main Street, Newlands, Cape Town). Carys’s print Ayabulela will also soon be on display at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz Mocaa) in the Home is where the art is: The Cape Town Exhibition from 22 October 2020 until 10 January 2021. Zeitz MOCAA is a public, not-for-profit institution that exhibits, collects, preserves and researches contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora; conceives and hosts international exhibitions; develops supporting educational, discursive and enrichment programmes; encourages intercultural understanding; and strives for access for all. For her next project, she would like to host an exhibition to raise funds for protecting the sea environment and combating climate change.
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