Stone

Fronteer Gallery
Sheffield
24 February - 12 March 2026

Title of Work: Ammonite Cluster
Medium: Lino Print (Monoprint) on handmade paper mounted on mulberry paper

Many years ago on holiday in North Yorkshire I found a flat chunk of rock on the beach. To my delight, it was embedded with a plethora of small fossils. It came home with me and has had pride of place on display ever since. When I saw the call for "Stone", my mind immediately went to fossils. I had a larger lino block of an ammonite that I had carved; I had deckle-edged roundels of recycled paper that I had made, which were the colour and texture of stone. And though they worked perfectly together to depict a single "specimen", for this call I wanted to evoke the more random and chaotic feel of the fossil sheet that I had found.

I carved two smaller rubber blocks, each with a single ammonite in differing scales and printed them, along with the larger block, in a new process for me. Most of my lino prints are single block and monochrome. Here I used archival inks in blended blues, browns, greens and greys and made a block print using the separate elements to build the composition I had envisioned. The roughness of the paper gives a textured, grainier print, evocative of the variability of a stone fossil impression. Gold ink highlights and flecks were added to give sparkle and hint at mineral inclusions.

The piece is mounted on handmade mulberry paper. This paper is textured, organic, and a warm brown to complement the cooler grey of the roundel. Below the piece is my stamped artist cartouche and a typewritten label with "Ammonite Cluster" which I wanted to be reminiscent of an old-fashioned museum label. This is an edition of one.