Creating art has always been an important part of Mairi Hedderwick Lawther’s life. Today, her focus is on the creation of lino prints inspired by her love of architecture, travel, and human experiences. Primarily, she works in black and white, enjoying the contrast and the clean lines a lino print can give, and has a style that is akin to line drawing.
Mairi studied BA Fine Art at Chichester university, where she worked across a mixture of media, printmaking, textiles, and collage. After graduating in 2013, she moved to Brighton where she partook in an etching course at BIP printmaking studio, and then joined the open access studio.
After working full time for a couple of years, Mairi went on to study Interior Design at Brighton uni, drawing on her love of spatial design and creative thinking. After working in London designing bathrooms, she got a job as a space planner in Brighton. Whilst there she got pregnant and had her daughter in 2021.
It wasn’t until 2020 that Mairi started to rekindle her passion for lino prints, having used them in mixed media artwork on her art foundation and during her BA. Lockdown meant no access to a print studio and she had to be able to create artwork at home. The birth of her daughter drove home the need to make art in the home and in whatever spare time she had.
Mairi’s prints are inspired by her life, architecture, exhibitions, and travel. However, since becoming a mother herself, her main focus has developed into looking at motherhood. Her prints highlight the huge changes that happen when you become a mother, and the intense and multifaceted experience of having children; fascinating and mundane, and filled with the most extreme love.
Her work usually begins with a photograph, from which Mairi creates a drawing. Most of the time she does this by hand, but occasionally she uses Pro Create to draw digitally. These drawings are then either transferred onto the lino block to begin carving, or sometimes drawn directly onto the lino (backwards). When working at home she works at the kitchen table when she can, sometimes with her daughter next to her.
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