Westonbirt Oak Print

'Westonbirt Oak' etching and aquatint with chine collé.
Printed on 300gsm Somerset Satin paper.
Plate measures 40cm x 58cm.
Paper measures 56cm x 76cm.
Signed, titled and editioned in an edition of 30.

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.

This large etching is of an oak tree made using multiple layers of hard ground, aquatint, sugar lift, scraping and burnishing. Printed using charbonnel ink onto delicate 12gsm gampi chine collé and Somerset Satin paper. The gampi has a beautiful sheen that gives the print something extra in real life. The subject is an oak tree at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire.

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 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.