Viewing Room

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Angie Lewin

6th - 28th October 2023
Through the Seasons
Screenprints, Linocuts & Wood Engravings

The Moon and the Trees, screenprint, 32.5 x 32cm

“ ‘Through the Seasons’ is a reflection on my favourite native plants in familiar locations as I observe them on my daily walks, sometimes stopping to make sketches which are the reference for my limited edition prints.”

Whilst living in Norfolk, and then Edinburgh, Angie Lewin spent some considerable time exploring the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. She and her husband, Simon, eventually set up home in a beautiful area of rural Speyside. Angie’s fondness for Norfolk, Uist and Speyside has had a profound impact on her work as a watercolourist and printmaker. Angie is drawn to these contrasting natural environments because of her keen interest in plant life.

Spey Larch & Feathers, screenprint, 50 x 64cm
(Speyside)

Having competed a course in horticulture, Angie is acutely aware of the life cycles of both wild and cultivated plants. The prints in this exhibition reflect on her favourite native plants as their life cycle progresses from seedling to flower, fruit and finally seedhead. As the colours in the countryside change through the seasons, her work responds with a colour palette echoing the weather and landscape.

Plantain, Summer Shore, srceenprint, 26 x 30cm (North Uist)

Autumn Teasels, linocut, 36.5 x 30cm (Norfolk)

Dahlias and Anemones, wood engraving, 10 x 10cm

Angie has erected a Polycrub in her garden in Speyside in which she grows fruit and vegetable to eat and flowers to admire. Her gigantic dahlias feature in her work, as do fritillaries and other plants from her hillside garden.

The permanent move to Speyside three years ago has made access to printmaking facilities in the cities a bit tricky. Angie has therefore invested in some new high-tech equipment to enable her to create her own screenprints from start to finish in her new studio. This involves a UV exposure unit to transpose her templates onto screens and a specialist screenprinting press.

Tulips and Fritillaries, screenprint, variable edition, 50 x 39cm

Having this equipment on her doorstep has given Angie the time and freedom to be more experimental with her screenprints and to try out new techniques. For the first time ever, she will be showing some new variable edition screenprints in which the colour combinations vary from one print to the next.

“I’m enjoying the freedom of making variable editions using photo and paper stencils and also painting with inks direct onto the screen. ‘Tulips and Fritillaries’ is an example where each print, in a variable edition of 30, is unique.”

Fern Cup, wood engraving, 15 x 15cm

Linocut and wood-engraving have always been an important part of Angie’s printmaking oeuvre and she prints these using her hydraulic press and her precious antique platen press.

Thrift Moon, wood engraving, 16 x 9cm - Frost Garden, wood engraving, 10 x 7.5cm - Sea Holly, wood engraving, 10.5 x 7cm

Season Songs, linocut, 36 x 34cm

Island Primrose, screenprint, 30.5 x 26cm

In Spring 2024 Thames and Hudson will publish 'The Book of Wildflowers’, written by Christopher Stocks and illustrated throughout with prints and watercolours by Angie Lewin. New screenprints ‘Island Primrose’, ‘Plantain, Summer Shore’ and ’Sea Pinks and Pebbles’ will feature in this book.

An anthology of garden writing published by Merrell, ‘Garden Wisdom’, is illustrated throughout with Angie’s prints. In 2010 a monograph of her work ‘Angie Lewin – Plants and Places’ was published featuring over 70 limited edition prints grouped according to habitat – such as coast, woodland and hedgerow, and garden – together with drawings, paintings and collages.

Angie Lewin was born in 1963 and studied printmaking at Central St Martins College of Art and Design and Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts from 1983-87. After working in London as an illustrator Angie studied horticulture and then a move to Norfolk prompted a return to printmaking. As well as designing fabrics and stationery for St Jude’s, which she runs with her husband Simon, she has completed commissions for Penguin, Faber, Conran, Octopus, Merrell and Picador. She has also designed fabrics for Liberty’s Autumn Winter 2010 collection.

In 2006 she was elected to The Royal Society of Painter Printmakers and in 2008 to The Society of Wood Engravers. In 2010 she was elected to The Art Workers Guild and in 2016 she was elected to The Royal Watercolour Society.

Angie’s work has received extensive coverage in various magazines including Gardens Illustrated, BBC Homes and Antiques, Homes and Interiors Scotland, Sunday Times, Crafts Magazine, Ceramic Review and Country Living.

View works By Angie Lewin here