About

“An effect of texture and translucency being something between an old Italian fresco, an English landscape painting and a Japanese woodblock print”

What I do

Ruth AnderMy inspiration is landscape, nature and light- often in North Somerset, the Severn Estuary, Dorset and Wiltshire- the places I know and love best, but also sometimes far away places I’ve travelled to. My motivation is to express the way I feel about these places- they move me and I want to move others.

I use a mixture of techniques:
hand mono-printing, delicate, translucent drifts of colour on fine tissue paper and traditional hand-made Japanese paper.
These are one-off images, usually larger in scale. Contact me if there’s one you like the look of.

Variable editions of etchings and relief prints, with mono-print and collage elements. Many of these prints are available in my online shop. They tend to be smaller in scale.

Cyanotype photographs- a 19th century photographic technique, using ultra-violet light and water to create painterly, atmospheric one-off photographs. Some of these are available in my online shop.

And sometimes I use all three!

The images are made by building up, often transluscent, layers of colour, texture and line either by printing by hand, with a printing press or both.

Some layers are so delicate they appear breathed onto the paper, the finished effect of texture and translucency being something between an old Italian fresco, an English landscape painting and a Japanese woodblock print.

How I got here

After completing a BA (Hons) in Illustration at the University of the West of England, I have continued to evolve and hone my unique mono-print technique.

I have continued to develop work at Spike Print Studio in Bristol, regularly making variable editions of dry-point etchings and relief prints.

Early in my career I was short listed for the Emerging Artist award at the Royal West of England Academy Open exhibition and won the Society of Graphic Fine Art’s Best Work in Colour, and have gone on to have work shown in prestigious print exhibitions at the Atkinson Gallery in Somerset and The Shire Hall in Stafford and in open competitions at well-regarded venues such as the RWA and Black Swan Arts in Frome as well as exhibiting widely in both group and solo shows.

In recent years I’ve taken part in a year long print residency at the University of the West of England’s print department and a group residency at Lizard Point in Cornwall resulting in exhibitions in London and Helston.

I am represented by Tincleton Gallery, Dorset and Makers on Colston Street in Bristol.  I live and work in Bristol and am a member of Spike Print Studio.

Learn more about my print process: What is monoprinting?

If you’d like to see more of my current work head over to my shop.

If you’re interested in learning to mono-print, check out when my next workshop is here.

View my CV for details about selected exhibitions, art fairs, awards and projects.