Mystical Places in the White Peak

An exhibition of prints by Barbara Smith developed from sketches, photographs and paintings of Thors Cave, Dove Holes, Ilam Rock and the Nine Maidens.

“The Peak District is well known for its beautiful limestone caves, rocks and Gorges. After mastering the art of Chinese landscape painting and learning how to paint English landscape in this way, I spent some time sketching and painting Dovedale and other well known areas of the White Peak. The southern end of the national park is named White Peak because of the white limestone. The northern area is known as the Dark Peak.

In this exhibition I wanted to re-interpret these images in screen prints and show them alongside some of the original paintings and sketches. I also wanted to set myself the challenge of developing and using various techniques with the silk screen; using paper stencils, the painterly effect of monotype, CMYK and Chine collé.

I made a drawing for a photographic screen print, which I developed on my iPad, as the starting point for most of the images, aiming to make a unique print. From this stage on I worked, like I would one of my original paintings by adding colour to various areas with paper cut stencils and or tissue paper. I also wanted to explore painting directly onto a screen with watercolour pencils and crayons before pulling the binder across to make a monotype print. I love the flat areas of colour and overprinting effects of screen print. All the places in this exhibition have a mystical quality for me.”