Tom Hammick: Published by Glasgow Print Studio: Ground Floor Gallery

Tom Hammick: Published by Glasgow Print Studio 2019 - 2021

3rd to 25th September 2020, ground floor gallery

Glasgow Print Studio is delighted to present editions in print by the internationally renowned artist Tom Hammick (b.1963). In 2019 GPS hosted Tom's first solo exhibition in Scotland, during which time these editions were being developed in collaboration between the artist and Glasgow Print Studio Master Printmakers. These eight completed publications beautifully illustrate Hammick's capacity for arresting, stark imagery that invite us to inhabit and explore intimate, reflective worlds of human experience and emotion.

Hammick has described landscape in his work as a metaphor to explore an "imaginary and mythological dreamscape." Drawing on a wide range of sources, from Japanese woodblock prints to Northern European Romantic painting and contemporary cinema, Hammick's depictions of isolated human dwellings grounded in uncanny dream-like settings summon the uneasy atmosphere of a psychologically-charged thriller, or a dystopian suburban nightmare.

His imaginative and emotional exploration into the human condition explores questions about place and transience and asks questions as much about home, where we belong, and how the ideas of a connection to place conjure up aspects of who we are and how we live. His images often are centred around inhabitants living on the fringes or outskirts of society, as metaphors for how artists of all sorts find themselves often on the outside looking in as the obvious vantage point for filtering the copy of life and acting as barometers of the state we are in.

GPS workshop manager, Claire Forsyth, reflects on the making of the editions:

"Hammick, as a prolific painter, brought an unerring sense of intuition and play to the colour mixing process. The master printers worked alongside him, learning his process of colour matching, tweaking and adapting, furthering their own knowledge of colour theory and how hues oxidise and change colour on copper. Working from sketches and other preparatory material, Hammick drew into prepared waxed copper plates or used spit bite to create painterly marks, then several plates were printed on top of each other, creating multi-toned images. After further proofing, the colour on each plate was adjusted until harmony was achieved.

Some of the plates allowed us to experiment with digitally printed chine-collé, another new skill the printers added to their belt. We all enjoyed working with Tom, his assistants who came to join for a couple of days, and the experience of creative learning and skill sharing that occurs during collaboration."

Tom Hammick was the winner of the V&A Prize at the International Print Biennale, Newcastle, UK in 2016, his print Violetta and Alfredo's Escape (2016) was subsequently obtained by the V&A, and he has recently been awarded the prestigious Joseph Albers foundation Fellowship in 2019. Tom has work in many major public and corporate collections including the British Museum (Collection of Prints and Drawings); V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum), UK; Bibliotheque Nationale de France (Collection of Prints and Drawings); Deutsche Bank; Yale Centre for British Art; The Library of Congress, Washington DC, New York Public Library and Minneapolis Fine Art Institute. He is currently senior lecturer in Fine Art, Painting & Printmaking at University of Brighton.

He has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. Highlights of Tom's exhibitions from the past 5 years include his solo show, Wall Window World in 2015, exhibited in Bridports Art centre, Flowers East Gallery in London, Flowers New York and Gallery Podromus in Paris. Tom successively solely curated Towards Night at Towner Gallery, Eastbourne (2016), which displayed a collection of over 60 artists spanning across 200 years and their individual exploration of the 'nocturnal', and subsequently his solo show, Passes Between Us, was displayed at Rabley Drawing Centre, in 2016, which exhibited paintings and prints on paper that were inspired by his ENO residency. Lunar Voyage, a collection of 17 woodcuts made in Scotland and London in 2017/18 were exhibited at Flowers Gallery New York and Flowers Gallery Kingsland Road, London in 2017, to great critical acclaim.

Workshop images courtesy of Claire Forsyth