Welcome

I am Sylvia Davey BA Hons.

I am an artist printmaker, based in the Scottish Borders, with experience and training in a wide range of fine art and craft activity.

My images are commonly drawn from an organic source, but I seek to demonstrate my ideas about the world we inhabit and the effect on our inner selves, rather than to illustrate something which already exists.

The process I use is known as a 'collagraph print'. I create these on an artist's etching press, from a set of hand-made plates. Each plate is inked up using light-fast, oil-based, coloured etching inks, and may be printed in several very thin layers, onto damp heavy weight acid-free printmakers paper. The resulting print often carries deep texture, embossed into the surface of the paper, from the pressure of the collagraph plate as it passes through the rollers of the press. This appears as ridges and indentations, and are clearly visible in an oblique light.

Most of the work shown on these pages are mono-prints. I am less interested in producing editions of prints than in exploring an idea over a series of themed works. I enjoy the challenge of developing an image over five or ten closely related, but unique pieces of work. This allows a fairly experimental approach, an element of risk-taking, which draws me forward as an artist, and keeps the work fresh, expressive and exciting.