Get to know - Christopher Pearson
3 words to describe your work
Alchemical - Playful - Serendipitous
What do you aim to explore through your work?
I am driven by staging conditions in which a hidden performance takes place in ink between paper and plate, surface and substrate. My work relishes process-led methodologies and adventures into new print languages. Recently, I have been working on an edition entitled 'Extracts'. The etched aluminium and collagraph plate from which this is printed repurposes textural offcuts from old prints and embossings. The plate is treated with different intaglio and relief inkings, and is then printed. I enjoy this cyclical sense of regeneration, where something rejected is revalued and sublimated into something exciting and unknown. The result is always unpredictable - addictively so - and leads, serendipitously, to further ideas and possibilities.
Where does your inspiration come from?
As I am a sculptor, as well as a printmaker, I am often inspired by the prints of other sculptors: Gertrude Goldschmidt, Barbara Hepworth, Barry Flanagan, and Henry Moore, to name a few. Additionally, Cy Twombly’s etchings, Gillian Ayres’ woodcuts, Kate Gibb’s screenprints, and Howard Hodgkin’s carborundum works have long provided great inspiration to me. As have the sculptures of Lynda Benglis, Florian Roithmayr, Angela de la Cruz, Rachel Whiteread, and Senga Nengudi. Abstract Expressionist approaches to making, and innovative means of disrupting the formality of printmaking processes are key to my material research. I enjoy using art as a revelatory experience of 'working through' thoughts and ideas, and finding new inventive opportunities, so, often, my inspiration comes from the acts of bringing materials together.
What is your proudest achievement?
Winning the School of Design Prize for the best final-year degree-show installation at the University of Leeds upon graduating from my BA (Hons) in Art & Design there in 2017, and consequently progressing to MA level in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins later that year.
Who are your favourite artists currently?
Recently, I have been enjoying gradually expanding my collection of ceramics by various studio potters working currently in Britain, and thoroughly enjoy using pieces by artists including Brigitte Colleaux, Lisa Hammond, Svend Bayer, Nigel Lambert, Matthew Blakely, Charlie Collier, and Francis Lloyd Jones, in my home in East London. I am also eagerly anticipating seeing Helen Frankenthaler's large-scale woodcuts at the Dulwich Picture Gallery very soon, and am sure this will impact positively upon my own approaches to printmaking.
Christopher's work is also available on our art shop!