This print was created in conjunction with the Glasgow Print Studio 50th Anniversary Here & Now Legacy Project. Peridium is part of an on-going investigation of biomorphic and microbial forms of microscopic life, with a particular focus on their growth and proliferation. In addition to studying the extra-ordinary shapes and structures of microscopic life, Lillee is intrigued by the cultural dynamics found within them, such as when a virus takes host within a living cell, it both infects and nurtures simultaneously, or likewise, bacterial life’s reliance on decaying and decomposing matter for its own survival. Peridium is a protective layer that encloses a mass of spores in fungi. For the Here & Now print, Lillee took inspiration from a genus of slime mould called Cribraria. It has a delicate net-like peridium, with a structure of vertical, thickened threads that are interconnected by extremely fine, translucent transverse threads.

Wishing to create prints with the least possible environmental impact, Lillee has employed the technique of drypoint, in which you simply utilise a drypoint needle to manipulate the surface of a soft metal plate, such as copper or aluminium, without the need to use acid or other toxic substances. Using a drypoint needle and other tools she has scratched the surface of the metal, which when printed leaves a soft irregular line on the paper. She also mixed her printing inks using natural earth pigments and a water-soluble base.

Hanne Lillee was born in Norway in 1988. She studied at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan, Italy, graduating in 2010 with a BA in Visual Art. She holds a MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths University of London, graduating in 2013. Her work involves the processes of sculpture making, printmaking and photography, whereby the boundaries between these mediums often become blurred. She explores the complexities of the living and the organic, as she looks at themes of putrefaction and procreation, and the repetitive force that turns damage and decay into rebirth and regrowth. She has been an employee of Glasgow Print Studio since 2018, as a Gallery Retail Assistant and lately also as a Legacy Researcher.