Joshua Miles

 I am an artist/printmaker who specializes in reduction linocuts. My first exposure to printmaking was at a young age watching my aunt doing woodcuts. She worked in the German expressionist style and would often illustrate mythology. I was fascinated by the link between art and spirituality. I studied fine arts at the University of Cape Town where I majored in painting. I painted oil on canvas for 15 years often en plein air but I always kept my hand in with my first love of printmaking. I have a passion for the reduction block process, first with woodcuts then linocuts. My work is greatly influenced by the Japanese printmakers technique of selective rolling. I often think I use my rollers like brushes painting on the block. I am also inspired by the loose mark making of the impressionists and how those marks can become what the human eye and brain reads as realism. I am drawn to the play of light. All of my works are done by hand. I love the idea that the energy is channeled through my eyes, processed by my brain then runs down my arm and flows out my hand. With my process I start with hunting the landscape. Already when pointing the camera I am looking at the tone, composition, colour and mood. Then with my sketch I love the spontaneity of drawing straight onto the lino. The mark making of using a thick permanent marker already imitating the chisel marks. I don’t ever conceive of all of the steps at once. Every day is decision making and new excitement. For me the reduction process is like a song or a piece of theatre that has a start and finish as the block is destroyed in the process.