Maxine Copeland
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After a degree inn Art History and postgraduate studies in Architectural History, Maxine worked for some years as a historical building officer and then as a lecturer in the history of art, architecture and design. However, alongside these activities she continued the creative activities she had pursued since childhood, and from 1998 focused on relief printmaking. She gave up teaching in 2011 to concentrate on printmaking.
Her principal medium is the linocut, a form of relief printmaking akin to woodcutting. In general she produces 3 or 4 colour images, using the reduction technique. With this method a single lino block is re-cut between the application of each successive layer of colour. Once she has started to re-cut the block for the next stage there is no going back, so the approach is necessarily very controlled. Maxine sometimes also adds watercolour washes to the prints, particularly those printed in a single colour.
All Maxine’s prints are representational, although her use of colour is not necessarily naturalistic. She is interested in pattern and structure, and in the play of light and dark. Many of her prints depict architecture or sculpture, although she also produces occasional pieces depicting figures, based on literature (such as the poems of Robert Frost) or on folk music and traditions.
Her principal medium is the linocut, a form of relief printmaking akin to woodcutting. In general she produces 3 or 4 colour images, using the reduction technique. With this method a single lino block is re-cut between the application of each successive layer of colour. Once she has started to re-cut the block for the next stage there is no going back, so the approach is necessarily very controlled. Maxine sometimes also adds watercolour washes to the prints, particularly those printed in a single colour.
All Maxine’s prints are representational, although her use of colour is not necessarily naturalistic. She is interested in pattern and structure, and in the play of light and dark. Many of her prints depict architecture or sculpture, although she also produces occasional pieces depicting figures, based on literature (such as the poems of Robert Frost) or on folk music and traditions.