Rachel Duckhouse

This print was created in conjunction with the Glasgow Print Studio 50th Anniversary Here & Now Legacy Project. "The St Enoch Centre (And its Ghost) reuses three steel plates that I’d made an etching with in 2018, for the GPS exhibition ‘Glasgow in Print’."

"I wanted to return to these plates because I still think a lot about the building they’re based on – The St Enoch Centre, and how this part of the city, which includes Glasgow Print Studio, continues to break down, build up, flatten and rise in ongoing cycles of planning and forgetting."

"The St Enoch Centre is just around the corner from the Print Studio, close to the River Clyde. The shopping centre that once included an ice rink was opened in 1989, and is the largest glass covered enclosed area in Europe. Plans have been drawn up for it to be demolished over the next twenty years as part of a huge redevelopment of this part of the city.
I think a lot about the future of cities like Glasgow, especially ones with tidal rivers running through them; about 'The Drowned World' by JG Ballard, and Octavia E Butler’s 'The Parable of the Sower'. Walking through a city while thinking about its future can feel like walking through a ghost town and I liked the idea of including ghost prints of the plates alongside the first impression."

"The three individually cut plates are etched with hand drawn lines, made with an etching needle and a ruler on hardground. Each plate is printed twice – the second pass through the press creating a lighter ‘ghost’ print."

Rachel Duckhouse was born in England in 1975. She studied at Leeds College of Art and Winchester School of Art before moving to Glasgow where she’s lived and worked since 1998. She first came to GPS for a screenprinting evening course, discovered etching, and then just never really left.

Since then she’s been included in several group exhibitions and solo shows. In 2015 she travelled with Bronwen Sleigh across southeast Canada on a research trip and exhibition exchange between GPS and Engramme in Quebec City. In 2019 she walked through the Outer Hebrides as part of her RSA Residencies for Scotland residency between Taigh Chearsabhagh in North Uist and GPS.

She has undertaken artist residencies in Australia, Canada, Scotland, London and Cornwall, and has exhibited work in the UK, North America, New Zealand, and Singapore.

She has worked on several public art commissions, including the entrance gates to the redeveloped Edinburgh Printmakers. Her drawings, screenprints and etchings have been acquired by collections including The British Museum, Great Ormond Street Hospital and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York.