Description
Mike is a full-time printmaker with a workshop at the Ruskin Glasshouse in Stourbridge. He studied at Winchester School of Art, graduating in 1992, and completed an MA at De Montfort University in Leicester in 2005. In 2015, Mike started a series of prints based in and around Birmingham that he called 100 Views of Birmingham. One of the initial inspirations for the series came from Atagawa Hiroshige’s series 100 Views of Edo completed in the 1850s. The fresh and unusual compositions employed by Hiroshige have particularly influenced Mike as he journeys through the city of Birmingham looking for potential views. Mike works in relief printmaking methods such as engraving and linocut. He combines these processes with monotype to create complex multi-layered prints.
Mike’s prints are a celebration of a city, observing how the light and the seasons are reflected in Birmingham’s diverse buildings and spaces. The exhibition will comprise of 42 of Mike’s most recent views of Birmingham.
During the lockdown, Mike was unable to work in his studio and so he created several of the views by hand printing each layer and scanning the results. Mike combined the layers in Photoshop to create complex digital prints derived from relief printmaking. These prints are only available as giclées.
Prints that Mike created prior to the lockdowns and since are available as both original hand-pulled prints and can be ordered as giclées.
Mike has had many solo and group shows particularly in the Birmingham area, including Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the RBSA, Birmingham and Midland Institue, and Winterbourne House and Gardens.
