Tell us a bit about yourself
My name is Roz Edenbrow, I am an Art and Graphics teacher in a secondary school in London as well as an artist and printmaker! I discovered monoprinting through learning to teach the process to my students - it’s quick, fun and does not need as much preparation as stencil based screenprinting.
I absolutely fell in love with the process and found myself creating exemplar work for my classes more and more in my spare time.
My prints have continued to develop alongside my teaching, where, without exposure units I’ve exposed screens in the sun and stepped away from fine detail and alignment focussed printmaking I learnt whilst studying Graphic Design at Brighton University.
I have given myself over to more serendipitous designs, and learning to deal with prints not looking quite right first print down. I love this approach to printmaking, if it doesn’t look right, can you print over it? And again? Can you cut it up? Can you mount it? Can you include it in a collage?
This process helps my students gain confidence and not worry about things going wrong but has also helped me in seeing the first layer of my prints the starting point not the end product.
Where do you get your inspiration?
My work starts with a monoprint which is generally inspired by botanical shapes and colours. Without a garden, during lockdown I have turned my living room into a plant nursery, and I've turned our tiny front patio into a pot-plant vegetable patch.
I worry about depictions of plants and flowers being twee so I have combined the gestural, energetic marks that can be made through monoprinting with flat one colour geometric shapes. I love contrast in textures, shapes and have always been inspired by artists like Dieter Roth or Julie Mehretu.
What’s your biggest challenge as an artist?
As I work full time it’s fitting in my practise around work, social commitments (and some rest!). But I fully believe my teaching and creating as a combined practise. So challenge wise - time and space!
However, whilst at home in isolation, without access to the studio, I've turned my living room into a studio. Space limitations have forced me to slow down and change the type of prints I make. I’ve particularly enjoyed making smaller, more detailed prints.
Without studio time pressures I can consider my layering and composition carefully. I’ve been using screens I exposed for past projects in different ways, cropping into them or printing part of them. These prints are my lock down prints.
What’s the first arty thing you can remember making?
My grandmother was an artist and I remember her setting up her easel for me to paint (mainly dogs) on it, I must have been about 7 or 8?! Other than that I remember making a dog out of loo rolls and margarine pots as part of a primary school competition. I sense a theme…
What are you working on at the moment?
As we continue to navigate lockdown I hope to revisit old projects and continue to explore composition. Having said that, the studio is open again and I’m excited to go back. I want to reconsider the scale of the work I normally make and have been working on some large scale prints that I would never be able to make at home, printing on canvas!
