For April we’ll be showing some fabulous work by artist Amanda Jenkin.

Amanda trained in illustration and printmaking at Brighton and St. Martins and worked as a freelance illustrator whilst maintaining a long and varied career in arts education. She has taught Art and Design at Secondary, FE and HE level and joined the University of the Arts London (UAL) in 2007 where she taught at Camberwell College of Arts and the London College of Fashion (LCF) before joining the London College of Communication (LCC) where she currently leads the School of Design and teaches on the BA (hons) Illustration and Visual Media course.

Amanda has worked with all printmaking processes, but currently favours relief printing (Lino cutting) as a result of a pragmatic interest in low-tech “kitchen table” print processes developed during the Global Pandemic. Her drawing practise and research has often focussed on reportage drawing, but following relocation to Wivenhoe in 2020, and joining Wivenhoe Print Works she has mostly developed prints, paintings and mixed media work that responds to the local landscape from memory and a sense of place, rather than attempting to depict a specific location.

Recent printworks have also provided a vehicle for experimentation with etching lino blocks using caustic soda to achieve more painterly effects than are available through carving, and with the use of digital drawing tools to work up print designs from the templates created by the use of multiple layered Lino block stencils.

Amanda will be showing new work in a group show in the Wivenhoe Bookshop Shed during the Wivenhoe Art Trail Friday 19 – Sunday 20 May 2023.

Follow me on Instagram: amanda_sharkey_artist