About

Hi. I'm Matthew Strong. I'm a printmaker based in Nottingham, producing wood or linocut prints made using a reduction technique. 

I enjoy being out in big landscapes or exploring urban environments looking for less conventionally beautiful subjects. Through the time taken in the process of printmaking I hope to discover the complexity in simple things, with a particular fascination in the depth and layering of places and a building up of patterns. 

Originally trained as an architect, I enjoy the reduction process as it requires both a degree of planning but also a response to the prints as they develop and each cut is built upon. The process begins with a number of sketches that explore the subject and look for a composition. Drawn studies then test how to make texture from pattern, how the picture can be constructed from a limited colour palette and what cutting sequence might work. Final colour studies precede the cutting and printing stage, during which changes in cuts and colours continue to shape the final picture. 

Relief Printing : The process of relief printing is that of applying ink to something and then pushing that onto paper. The surfaces that are raised, ‘in relief’, touch the paper and leave ink to make a print. Many materials can be used to produce prints of this type – a simple hand print for example, or maybe a potato print. This apparent simplicity of process is appealing and gives the work an immediacy and a sense of ‘the hand’ even in more complex relief prints. 

Reduction Process: Where more than one colour is used I use a reduction process to build up the images. To do this a first ‘plate’ of lino or wood is cut and printed onto paper. This is repeated to produce multiple copies of the image – the number of copies at this point fixes the size of the ‘edition’. Next the original plate is cut a second time, ‘reducing’ the surface that carries ink. This is then applied to the prints of the edition to build a second colour over the original. This is then repeated as many times as there are colours. Prints made by this process are ‘limited editions’ in the truest sense as the process destroys the plate and further copies cannot be made.