Irish Printmaker, Rene Mullin, has been working from her home studio in Belfast for the past 20 years. She works mainly on Irish linen, producing both wall art and functional accessories, favouring techniques including screen print, linocut, and monoprinting.
Rene began printmaking on paper; dabbling in linocut and screen printing during weekend classes and summer schools in Edinburgh in the late 1990s. However, when she returned to Ireland to raise her children in 2005 she became much more aware of her familial links to the Irish linen industry, and started working with linen in her exploration of print. Today, she mostly screen prints on Irish linen, very rarely returning to the paper that ignited her journey into printmaking. Irish linen is one of the worlds most environmentally friendly textiles in both its production and longevity, as well as in its biodegradable properties (it takes just 2 weeks to fully biodegrade a piece of natural linen). “I have found a textile on my doorstep that fulfils all I want and need to allow me to produce new work entirely guilt free, this make me very happy,” says the printmaker.
Having worked from home for two decades, the recent spotlight on WFH and the issues that surround it are all very familiar to Rene. She comments; “Working from a private home studio is the only dream I’ve ever had and it came true pretty early for me. My biggest challenge has always been to keep it that way”. However, Rene wants to make big changes and develop an even more sustainable studio; “I love nature too much to continue to work in a way that isn’t prioritising it and ensuring no damage is done. I have made huge progress in eliminating waste, avoiding chemicals and sourcing all materials and supplies form as close to home as possible, I want to tighten this further, my aim is to be a zero-impact printmaker, a high bar I know!”
In recent years, Rene has began teaching a lot more remote workshops and classes, thus prompting a review of her current home studio situation. She has huge changes in the planning for a new studio space that can accommodate how she produces her product and how she interacts with others whilst hosting workshops. Rene states; “Making my workspace pay its way and be energy efficient and climate conscious as an individual artist, holds all the same requirements as a larger studio or organisation has to consider and plan for. This is my current goal.”
She has also been a member (and current Chair) of Belfast Print Workshop since 2009. Rene thrives in this shared environment; surrounded by fellow printmakers there is always something new to delve into and understand. “The really excellent thing about being part of a shared workshop is being able to tap into that knowledge, so while I do most of my production in my own private studio, I use the print workshop to teach classes, utilise larger equipment and communicate with other printmakers,” says Rene. This sense of community extends even further, as Rene describes; “Print studios globally have common features and thus are a familiar welcoming space no mater where in the world you visit them, being part of a larger global community like this is really fulfilling, it takes solitary working to a whole other level knowing that there is a community out there that can be accessed at any time.” Although, she notes that printmakers do need to review their collective environmental impact, as certain methods of printmaking can cause damage in both the sourcing and extraction processes of raw materials, packaging used for supplies, and in the waste disposal of much of the elements of each process. “This is an area I am keen to help make change happen.”
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