Residency at Guanlan International Printmaking Base, China

The printmaking centre is located in an historic village featuring traditional Hakka houses and much older stone towers that had belonged to important local families. These towers had an imposing presence reminiscent of those built during late medieval times in Tuscany. In Guanlan they were topped with quite intricate reliefs that combined elements from European classical architecture with more elaborate local motifs. I saw them as sentinels guarding the paddy fields and lilly ponds below.

I was fascinated by the effects of centuries of erosion on the walls of the village houses that had created richly pitted surfaces and patches of lichen-stains that are often found in tropical climates. In some of the back lanes of the village I found a stillness and a quiet presence that could evoke a hint of past lives.

On weekends there would be an influx of local tourists keen to explore the village and its beautiful gardens. I was struck by an image of young girls focused on taking smart-phone photos of themselves, oblivious to a now rare faded portrait of Mao on the wall above them.

I found that the etching process was ideally suited to explore some of the qualities I was keen to embody in these images.