Press Gang Printmakers

Press Gang celebrated 10 years of printmaking in September 2008.
This lively group of artists led by Mike Glanville and based at Salcombe Art Club, South Devon, set out with one converted mangle before adding an etching press to extend the range of possible work.

Now, with three presses in the studio, both relief and intaglio printmaking is in full swing during the weekly workshop sessions throughout the winter months.

When the old sail-loft studio is transformed to an exhibition space for the summer, the pleasure of working in the home studios of members with a press adds a new and invigorating dimension.

Printmakers benefit from each other's company, sharing ideas and information as well as materials and equipment 'everything, including the kitchen sink 'and of course Exhibitions.

Collographs, monoprints, lino cuts, wood cuts, etchings, monotypes, drypoints are all displayed - techniques and images as diverse as the artists, but all sharing the universal principle of transferring an image to paper from a prepared plate to create an original work.

Printmaking is a complex craft, with unpredictable results, which is all part of the appeal for artists with a taste for risk and invention.