People of the Soil

My work is rooted in narrative — I’m interested in what lies behind the figure, the landscape, or the gesture. Much of it is shaped by memory, personal history, and the cultural texture of growing up in North Wales.

Whether I’m working in oil, print, or watercolour, I’m often thinking about transformation: how the ordinary shifts into something strange, humorous, or quietly unsettling.

People of the Soil

A print-based series rooted in observations of rural poverty, working-class life, and agricultural hardship — often drawn from childhood experience in North Wales. Medium: Etchings, linocuts Themes :Rural hardship and quiet endurance. Community, isolation and dignity. Visual storytelling through expressive print and line. This series has strong links to my social commentary works and may also include starting points for larger paintings

My approach to printmaking is similar to my approach to drawing, I like to work quickly in order to get the images or ideas down. I mainly use drypoint and lino cutting techniques to achieve an almost instant result. I like the freedom of expression that drypoint allows, and the sketchy nature of the result ties in with my painting technique. I find monoprints and woodcuts also lend themselves to my choices of subject matter.

Favourite 10.4x7.2 on beige rag paper

Drypoint Etchings

A selection of small etchings and linocuts on a rural theme

Llew 10.4 x 7.2 on beige rag paper

Sisters 10.4 x 7.2 on beige rag paper

Champions 10.5 x 7.5 on beige rag paper

Working mostly in etching and drypoint, I’ve used this medium to capture something raw and human — gestures of holding, waiting, mourning, or simply enduring. The figures are often anonymous, distorted, or partially hidden. Sometimes they echo people I knew; other times they’re imagined amalgams, shaped by feeling rather than likeness.

Granny 10.5 x 7cm on beige rag paper

Magwen 13.4 x 9.8 on grey rag paper

Grab 10.2x7.2cm on grey rag

Printmaking allows me to work quickly and instinctively — to scratch into memory without overpolishing. Some of these prints went on to become larger oil paintings or sculptural forms; others hold their ground as stand-alone moments. Together, they tell quiet stories of people bound to the soil, weathered by landscape, class, and time.