Sketchbook

Frankfurt

Poster for current exhibition of the Icelandic artist Erro at the Schirn in Frankfurt and great stencil nearby.

Impressions from Frankfurt Bookfair

Just got back from Frankfurt Book Fair. Really liked these wooden characters I saw at some second hand book stalls.

my new website

Finally also some developments on my cargo website...have a wee look here!

Wall Drawing

This is my friends' hallway, currently being renovated. Great opportunity to go mad with pencil doodling!

Strolling About

This week Maggie and Jakub have posted a wee article about my work on their lovely blog Strolling About, so please take a look!
You will also find lots of great shots of Edinburgh, documenting the lifestyle of Scotland's capital.
Have a good weekend Maggie and Jakub!!

Edinburgh Printmakers Multiples Market

Last Sunday Edinburgh Printmakers had it's first craft fair upstairs in the gallery. Hugely enjoyed it due to the great company of fellow artists Eleni Kalorkoti, Robbie Porter, Louise Smurthwaite, Rosie Walters and my fellow stall holder Catherine Hiley.
Best part: EP prepared limited edition cupcakes, which were extremely tasty.

Bicycle Ride

Here one of my latest screen prints about a boy and his companion cycling through the woods. Cycling through the woods makes me think of summer at home and the idea for the print was born in a moment of cursing this rainy summer, looking forward to sunnier days.

The Paper Cinema and Kora presents: King Pest

Last week I had the chance to watch the amazing Paper Cinema at the Summerhall venue in Edinburgh, as they performed some work in progress for their interpretation of the Odyssey. I cant think of any other live act being anything like the Paper Cinema, as they combine some of my favourite things: drawing, moving images, music and storytelling. The concept of their performances is so simple and at the same time so genius, and I absolutely love watching their beautifully detailed black and white drawings move to the music, making my mind wonder off with the narrative of the play. If you ever have the chance to see them live, don't hesitate!

Circus Lion

Summer Updates- Spirituality? Peace?

This month I was part of an exhibition called Indelible Imprints the Edinburgh Printmakers had organised with the Festival of Spirituality and Peace.
This experience made me realise that spirituality and peace don't necessarily always come together. Despite the fact that we are part of their festival programme , it felt that I spent most part of the day I was invigilating the show to defend to the administration of the church hall why I had to be there in the first place. This got pretty well summed up by their question (quote): "Did you bring a good book with you? Good, cause you'll be sitting here all day doing absolutely nothing!" To be fair, I had a great book with me ( Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami), but was it not my mission to represent an arts institution and talk to people about printmaking? Was the purpose of our exhibition not to make the connection between a spiritual attitude and being creative? And did they as our hosts not support us in that? This slight uncomfortable feeling I had about being there finally got confirmed when I was then asked to instantaneously leave the building (or shall I say spontaneously evaporate into thin air?) by a couple of meditation tutors. Somehow ( and my guess is that this was the moment where I was expected to have achieved infinite wisdom...) their class was booked to take place in the same space at the same time and geee, I gotta start with meditation! I always wanted to learn more about it, but it went right past me that you have to get verbally aggressive, totally unreasonable and pretty rude just before you then start meditating. I guess it helps you to relax to work yourself up to exhaustion beforehand... however, is it not the purpose of meditation to achieve a more peaceful relationship to yourself and therefore to other human beings? God knows,eh?

Summer Updates- Swedish Forest

Summer Updates- Swedish Houses

This is my first time at a Swedish house auction, but I hope not the last time . Every single item (including the houses) was for sale! Unfortunately the rather ludicrous Ryan Air luggage restrictions wouldn't have allowed me to buy as much as a tea cup, but I enjoyed the time journey into rural Swedish life style and tried to picture myself in one of the Astrid Lindgren stories I grew up with. And Swedish people certainly got the hang of how to make an auction fun, sitting in the sunshine all day, eating hot dogs and drinking coffee and buying all these beautiful things at the same time!

Summer Updates- Designmarket

Here a few captions from the stall I shared with Karoline Rerrie and Catherine Hiley at the Fruitmarket Gallery in July with some of my new prints, cards and tote bags (more pictures will follow). Hoping the Fruitmarket will organise another Christmas fair this year, so watch this space!

Little Goytre

This week my work has been featured by Anna on her wonderful blog Little Goytre! Check out her site here, there are a lot of interesting things to see!

Interview with Oh Comely blog

I have recently been interviewed by the blog of the wonderful Oh Comely magazine about my exhibition, life and the rest; you can read the interview here. I have also managed to get some good photographs of the exhibited work done, so here are some detailed images of The Friendly Lion, Uplifting Thoughts, In the Woods and The Happy Village.

Fruitmarket Gallery Design Market

If you have no plans yet for the weekend, pop by the Edinburgh Fruitmarket Gallery for it's Design Market and visit my stall. Just preparing lots of new prints, such as the Happy Cat!

It's Time to Wonder...

I have been out of the loop for a while, but for a good reason. Recently I have been working towards my first solo exhibition, Time to Wonder, at the wonderful Red Door Gallery in Edinburgh.
Time to Wonder shows a series of original screen prints, a window display as well as a hand-printed window-installation. With my artwork I wanted to depict moments where the borders between dream and reality become fuzzy. Each piece plays with repetitive imagery of trees,leaves or birds and captures a collection of characters, flying and floating in a dream like state.
The exhibition opened last night and will be running until the 28th of July. If you are in Edinburgh over the next month, please pop by. More photos will follow soon!
I also want to post a big thank you to a number of people for all their help and support:
To Rachel and the excellent team of the Red Door Gallery for organising this exhibition: Nicky, Kerstin, Kathryn and Jason. You are all stars! To all the staff members and fellow screen printers at Edinburgh Printmakers, where I was able to print my work with a lot of helpful support and with many relaxing tea-breaks in very good company! To Richard Strachan for his beautiful framing work, to Naomi Hare for making stacks of badges for me over night and to Towera Ridley for helping me with printing tote bags. Check out all their sites!