Zoe Ansari

Zoe Ansari is a printmaker and sometime stone carver based in Cambridge in the UK, making lino prints from her home studio. She specialised in printmaking on Art Foundation at Cambridge School of Art, and developed a love for etching. She tells us; “I became fascinated with all the different processes involved and how each print, even though the same, varied in ever-so subtle ways”. Zoe then went on to study Fine Art at Psalter Lane in Sheffield, where she started making stop motion animations on 8mm and 16mm film. She was heavily influenced by the Czech animator Jan Svankmayer, so her work was pretty surreal.

Zoe then worked as an artist for a games company in Cambridge, which she found creative but not as fulfilling as she had hoped. Leaving there, she went travelling around south East Asia for a year, and after returning to the UK, she had no idea what she wanted to do next. It was whilst job hunting that Zoe came across the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge who made hand carved lettering for plaques, headstones and commemorative pieces. She was there for 3 years learning letter carving and relief carving in stone. Everything was done by hand, drawing the letters onto the stone and carving with a dummy and chisel. “It was a real privilege to be able to learn this ancient craft,” says the printmaker, and after finishing her apprenticeship Zoe became a self employed letter carver for over 15 years, taking on private commissions from headstones to celebratory pieces.

This work satisfied Zoe’s creative itch for a while, but after starting a family she found the whole commissioning process, dealing with clients, and the practicalities of handling large heavy pieces of stone problematic. She states; “I did not have the creative freedom I wanted with most of my commissions and really wanted to be able to create work that was meaningful and fun for me”. Zoe’s partner bought her a small cold laminate press for Christmas one year, some bits of lino, and some oil based inks. “I had a go but was pretty rubbish and gave it up for a while. Then one Christmas I decided to make some cards and became totally hooked. I invested in some better tools, watched a lot of YouTube videos by lino printers who knew their stuff, and made my first lino print ‘The Hare & Lurcher’,” says Zoe.

She has since worked on a couple of commissions, one for a logo and another commissioned print for a clients birthday. With these commissions Zoe had a very loose brief, which is how she most likes to work. She comments; “I still love carving in stone and slate and I have recently carved a Welsh Slate Plaque for The Nereids Exhibition curated by The lettering Arts Trust. We had a choice of Sea goddesses and I chose Keto, Goddess of sea monsters. I hope to make a lino print of the same design”.

Zoe’s prints are influenced by nature, folk art, myth, and story telling. She likes to develop her own myths and folklore, and tells us that she has “lots of ideas waiting to come into fruition as prints or as carvings”. Zoe also has a passion for pattern design, especially vintage pattens from India and Europe, and mid century textile design. At present she is working on a series of prints that are based around a new development near her home; “My children attend the new school there and I use the shop almost daily. This new development is built upon the site of an old farm and I regularly walk my dog on the surrounding fields which have yet to be developed. Currently, they are teaming with wildlife and I have spotted hares, foxes, field mice, Kestrels, Buzzards, a family of wild white rabbits and some peacocks.” These prints aim to explore the encroachment of the development on their habitats, and to explore how they adapt or not adapt to their ever-changing environment. Zoe’s work has an illustrative quality with a cartoony style, and the animals depicted are presented in an anthropomorphic way.

The printmaker is keen to continue to expand her portfolio, and would love to illustrate a book one day! Zoe dreams of designing patterns for fabric and wallpaper based upon her lino prints using sustainable fabrics and papers.

@ansari.zoe
www.ansariprints.co.uk

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