Domesday Oak Print

'Domesday Oak' drypoint etching with litho printed chine collé by Fiona Hamilton.
Printed on 300gsm Somerset Satin paper.
Plate measures 20cm x 30cm.
Paper measures 32cm x 44cm.
Signed, titled and editioned in pencil by the artist in an edition of 20.

Please note that etchings all have slight variations and will not be exactly the same as the photograph due to the subtle nuance in hand inking and wiping the plate. 

The Domesday Oak in Ashton Court, Bristol is so old that it is mentioned in the Domesday Book. If an Oak takes 300 years to grow, 300 years to live and 300 years to die, it is certainly in the latter part of it’s life. Boughs are held up by makeshift crutches, and although it shows a healthy display of leaves in the spring and summer, holding on well through Autumn, it is certainly a shadow of the tree it once was.

Fiona made this print using two plates with two different images of the same tree. Trying to capture a subtle suggestion of a trace of where it has been. The resulting image is not subtle, but vibrant and full of life and movement. The orange litho ink and the warm Japanese tissue used in this print represent the Autumnal season.

This body of work is based on the book by Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree. Trees communicate via mycorrhizal fungi to trade water and other nutrients. Ancient and mature trees nurture their offspring via these networks, as well as trading nutrients between other species. Botanist Simard has spent years working on this theory as part of a wider body of work, discovering what it means for forests, the climate and the wider Anthropocene.

About the artist:

Fiona Hamilton is a Bristol based printmaker. Her work explores the ecological sublime and an appreciation of the majesty of nature. She uses detailed intaglio etching, drypoint, lithography and chine collé to draw the viewer into an ethereal landscape that has an impact on our sense of place in relation to the natural world. She uses primarily black and white with natural tones of chine collé and sometimes layers of lithographic texture to introduce warmth to the stark palette and to invoke a sublime emotional connection. She works from sketches, photographs, notes and memory to create her prints.

Fiona Hamilton has an MA in Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking from The University of the West of England (2023). Previously she studied Graphic Fine Art at Canterbury (2002) and established Soma Gallery in 2004.