ABOUT US
Merlyn Chesterman and Rod Nelson are woodblock printmakers.
We became friends through a common enthusiasm for the work of the Japanese printmaker Shiko Munakata. Our work is very different, but we have learned a lot from each other. Merlyn has come to understand a lot more about the importance of fast cutting, with very sharp tools, and the resulting vibrancy and immediacy it can achieve, and Rod has come to experiment more with multiple blocks and colour. We appraise each other’s work, and exhibit together at times. Last year we were joint demonstrators at Art in Action, Oxfordshire. We also have a partnership, Shape Public Art. We recently won two commissions, one for a large mural in Bideford, Devon, and the other for a series of acoustic panels for the Pound Arts Centre, Corsham, Wiltshire. Our current project is the design and painting of two large Communist-era tower blocks in Tirana, Albania, part of a big urban regeneration innovation led by Edi Rama, the Mayor of Tirana, entitled ‘Greening and Painting’. |
  |
Portfolios
Explore Merlyn's and Rod's individual work, their cooperation in public art projects and a collection of work from friends.
Merlyn - Miniatures |
Merlyn Gallery 2 |
Rod |
Public Art Projects |
Friends |
TEACHING
Merlyn is a tutor on the Short Course Programme at West Dean College, near Chichester in South West England. The college offers weekend and longer courses in a huge range of arts, crafts, gardening, music and creative writing, in a spectacular setting.
For information about upcoming courses please visit the West Dean College website or call 0844 4994408 or email short.courses@westdean.org.uk
Merlyn also runs woodblock printmaking courses from her home in Hartland, North Devon. These courses cater for new and experienced students. New participants will mainly work in black and white and become familiar with woods, inks, papers, tools, tool sharpening, equipment, handprinting and machine printing. The more experienced can experiment with the reduction or multi-block processes and share ideas or change direction. The rugged Atlantic coast can be a marvellous starting point for prints.
Visitors staying locally are welcome to do a day course at short notice.
For further information about the courses in Hartland please contact Merlyn via email merlyn@twohartonmanor.co.uk or call (0)1237 441670 | (0)7771610982 |
|
MERLYN CHESTERMAN
I was brought up in Hong Kong, returning to England to study Fine Art at Bath Academy of Art, studying with Adrian Heath and Howard Hodgkin. I then lived and traveled in Asia for many years, spending time in Bhutan, Kashmir, China and Thailand, exhibiting in Hong Kong. Always a painter, I began woodblock printmaking in 2000. My work is mostly about places and the natural world, and what I see and feel around me. I try to catch the spirit of place, working on a fundamental abstract level, with a supporting, literal surface. even in woodcuts,as with painting, I try to keep my options for development open, to keep the process alive. Looking back over my sketchbooks, it surprises me slightly that I have always had the same preoccupations.
I work using mainly lime, with its superb cutting quality, and elm and plywood, choosing boards for their particular grain. I print the large prints in Okawara, a Japanese paper, using oil based, water washable inks, often grading colour on the roller and adding extender to dilute the pigment. I will usually use several blocks, one print over the other.
EXHIBITIONS
2010 Exhibitor, Originals 2010, Mall Galleries, London, Federation of British Artists One person show, Taller Galeria Fort, Cadaques, Spain (ADOGI). Exhibitor, Sala Cavazza, SerenArte, Municipality of Bologna, Italy
2009 Demonstrator and exhibitor, Art in Action, Waterperry, Oxfordshire Demonstrator and exhibitor, Cressing Temple Exhibitor, Open Print, RWA Bristol
2008 The Burton Art Gallery, Bideford, May’08, 2 person show Ruskin Mill, Gloucs, September’08, 2 person show ‘Made To Think’. Short course tutor’s Summer Show at The Sussex Barn, West Dean College, Chichester Exhibitor in ‘Footprint’ 1st Biennial International Print Competition, Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk,U.S. Exhibitor in the Society of Wood Engravers 71st Annual Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London 2001-2007 Royal West of England Academy, Open Print, Bristol ‘Here and There’ one person show in Marine on St Croix, Minnesota for the Science Museum of Minnesota. North Devon Festival, two-person printmaking show at Appledore Craft Company. Society of Wood Engravers 69th Annual Exhibition group touring show. Illustration in Monoprinting, pub. A&C. Black. Arts now, Red Forge Collective Exhibition Corsham, Wilts Group Show, Stillwater Public Library, Science Museum of Minnesota
1985-2000 Artwork for Wildlife Fund Thailand Illustration for Sawasdee, Thai Airways Inflight magazine Invitation by Royal Government of Bhutan to travel through Bhutan to promote the country through painting. One-person show at the National Liberal Club, Whitehall, London Manhattan Graphics, NY, group show The Walk, London, SE1, summer group show
1977-1985 Contemporary Hong Kong Biennial Exhibition, City Hall Save the Children Fund Exhibition, The Mandarin, Hong Kong. Contemporary Hong Kong Biennial Exhibition, City Hall China Coast Community Exhibition, The Mandarin, Hong Kong One-person show at IDL, Lane Crawford’s: ‘Paintings and Illustrations of China and Bhutan’ Contemporary Hong Kong Biennial Exhibition, City Hall Cover for Asia Week: The Dalai Lama Group show ‘Western Eyes Look at the Orient’, Landmark, Hong Kong Contemporary Hong Kong Biennial Exhibition, City Hall Winner of Urban Council Fine Arts Drawing Award Urban Council of Fine Arts Award Winners Exhibition, City Hall, Hong Kong Plant illustrations for ‘Twelve Hong Kong Walks’, published by OUP
AWARDS, GRANTS, RESIDENCIES, COMMISSIONS, RESIDENCIES AND MEMBERSHIP
2010 Winner, ADOGI 29th Mini Print International of Cadaques, Spain
2008 Designs selected by the Mayor of Tirana, Albania, to decorate two Communist era buildings in the capital. Joint project with Rod Nelson. Member of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen
2007 Winner of competition to design St. George’s field wall mural, Bideford. Co-designed with Rod Nelson. Commissioned to design and execute six acoustic panels, with Rod Nelson, for Pound Arts Centre, Corsham, Wiltshire.
2002 Tarka Country Millenium Award to set up printmaking workshops in Hartland, Devon. Devon Community Foundation Local Network Fund grant to run open-access printmaking workshopshops in Hartland, Devon Arts Council England Award to develop a series of large-scale woodcuts. Artist in Residence, St. Croix Watershed Research Station, Science Museum of Minnesota. ‘Enhancing environmental awareness and scientific understanding through the aesthetics of art’. Awards for All grant to run printmaking workshops, Devon. Local Network Fund to continue printmaking workshops. UnLtd. Millenium Award. Limited edition woodcut for Chichester Writing Festival
WORK IN THE COLLECTIONS OF:
City Hall Museum of Art, Permanent Collection, Hong Kong. Princess Ashi Tashi Dorji of Bhutan Lord & Lady Wilson of Tillyorn. Simon & Caroline Bowes Lyon, Lord Lieutenant of Herefordshire. The Edward James Foundation, West Dean College, Chichester.
TEACHING:
2000 – date: Link Tutor with the Pupils Out Of School Team, Devon Learning and Development Partnership, Devon County Council 2005- date: Short Course Tutor, The Edward James Foundation, West Dean College, Chichester. |
  |
CONTACT
|
Merlyn Chesterman
2 Harton Manor (0)7771610982 merlyn@twohartonmanor.co.uk |
Rod Nelson
1 Merton Cottages (0)7957890447 rod@wallowgreen.demon.co.uk |
ROD NELSON
For many years I earned my living from woodwork as a carpenter and joiner. For the last ten years, I have carried out work in relation to forest protection and sustainable forest management. I like to feel that a connection with trees, forestry, wood and the working of wood is at the centre of my working life.
My interest in printmaking (and of course, printing from wood blocks) is mostly derived from the fact that there was a printing press at our home. On this lovely old machine, my adopted father, who was a professional musician and a keen amateur printer, would produce printed work of very high quality - he was something of a perfectionist. Sometimes he felt that work could be enhanced with decorative motifs or with small illustrations and from time to time he would ask me to produce a lino cut or a drawing. So, very tentatively, I began to produce cuts to order, without having much confidence in my artistic abilities. Right from the start, I loved the feeling of printmaking, and I am still smitten. The beauty of the materials, the tools and the process, and the fact that ones does not need expensive or cumbersome equipment to produce ambitious work, all have a perennial appeal to me. My principle influence has undoubtedly been the work of Shiko Munakata. The humour, freedom and power of his work carry to me a sense of happiness and relief as though I have arrived during a long journey at a welcome signpost. Of course, there are several other artists from 'the East' and 'the West' whoes printed work I love. - among whom I must acknowledge Eric Gill. Gwen Raverat, Picasso, Naoko Matsubara, Reza Derakchani and Franz Masereel. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Merlyn Chesterman, who has been enormously helpful and encouraging for my printmaking work. She has somehow managed to imbue me with enough confidence to begin teaching, which I find (to my amazement) that I really enjoy. We also have a rather successful and enjoyable sideline in designing public art projects both in the UK and overseas.
EDUCATION Dartington Hall School Kingston College of Further Education Kings College, Cambridge 1970-73 School of Architecture
EXHIBITIONS One-person shows in Nailsworth and Stroud area 1995 and 1996 Exhibition in Leeds 1996 Print accepted in 2005 for Society of Wood Engravers and Printmakers touring exhibition. Print accepted in 2007 by the Federation of British Artists for the Originals 08 exhibition Ruskin Mill, Nailsworth, Glos - autumn print showSummer Show at the Sussex Barn, West Dean, Chichester. Hookhouse Pottery, Tetbury tbc Basel, Switzerland
TEACHING Teaching printmaking part-time at Acorn School, Nailsworth. Co-teaching (with Merlyn Chesterman) on course at West Dean College –2007 entitled ‘After Mu- nakata’. Course at West Dean College in Jan. 2008 ‘Woodcut and Watercolour’ Woodcut printmaking course at Blackthorn Art Centre, Cricklade. March 2008
ILLUSTRATIONS Drawings and lino cuts used in private publications by Cock Robin Press, Ashburton, Devon. 1985 onwards
MURALS AND PUBLIC ART Winner (with Merlyn Chesterman) competition for mural at St Georges Field, Bideford Commission (with Merlyn Chesterman) for six acoustic panels for Pound Art Centre, Corsham, Wilts. Designs selected by the mayor of Tirana (Albania) for urban regeneration project 2008 (not yet carried out) |
|
BUY
Please contact the artist to purchase prints. These can be sent unmounted anywhere in the world.
|
Merlyn Chesterman
2 Harton Manor (0)7771610982 merlyn@twohartonmanor.co.uk |
Rod Nelson
1 Merton Cottages (0)7957890447 rod@wallowgreen.demon.co.uk |
GEORGE BLAKE
George is the Chief of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, along the Trinity River in Northern California. We met him at Ruskin Mill, in Gloucestershire, where we were exhibiting. He and Bella Peralta came down to Hartland to work on their prints, and this is where he made the large woodcut, 'Fishing the old way'.
George studied at the College of the Redwoods, and at the University of California. He has been recognised in the United States with a National Heritage Award, for his revival of the Hoopa sinew-backed bow, and is also a renowned jeweler and ceramist, and builds dug-out canoes.
FRIENDS |
||
| Adam Tulk | George Blake | Michel Mazzoni |
MICHEL MAZZONI
I was born in 1938 in a village northwest of Marseilles. Very early in my life health and memory problems excluded me from higher education. I created my first sculp-ture at the age of 6 and during my solitary youth I discovered painting, sculpture, drawing, engraving – I am largely self taught. After having been put out of the house by my father (for not pursuing a career as a doctor or lawyer !), I seriously began my artistic pilgrimage.I lived with my family in the mountains of the Cevennes for ten years where I was at the university of Nature; a profound and lasting inspiration.
Since 1980 I have continued my work as an artist in the country in central France. My research aims to define the spiritual movement in all material forms. The spirit for me gives life to matter. Without this impulse of spiritual force,the material world cannot live. A work of art is for me the route which leaves what one actually sees to go towards the invisible – the spirit which animates all matter.
Michel Mazzoni Les Guenetteries 03160 Franchesse France
Email: mazzoni.michelsculpteur@gmail.com
|
|
ADAM TULKAdam is a young artist friend, a woodblock printmaker and stone carver. His stone reliefs have been exhibited at the Burton Art Gallery and Museum, and at the age of 14 was commissioned to carve a plaque for the owner of Lethwaites Wines. He has sailed around the United Kingdom and Ireland on the Kathleen and May, a wooden hull three masted top sail schooner. |
