The Sidney Nolan Trust and Chelsea Arts Club Trust Printmaking Award 2025/26:
The work in my MA degree show received an award from a collaboration between Camberwell College of the Arts, the Chelsea Arts Club Trust and the Sidney Nolan Trust. The award was a three-week residency at The Rodd, Sidney Nolan’s home in Herefordshire. The residency aims to support artists who demonstrate innovation and a willingness to push the boundaries of their practice and technique, values central to Sidney Nolan's creative approach.
The Rodd, Presteigne, Powys.
Rural centre for the arts and home of Sidney Nolan RA.
Being awarded a three-week residency in an unfamiliar place filled me with both excitement and trepidation. My earlier self-directed residencies were rooted in myths I knew, landscapes I had chosen, and histories I could readily connect with. The Rodd, located in Herefordshire near the border with Wales, offered none of these familiar comforts; instead, it presented a different kind of challenge, one of responding to the unknown.
While researching the area and its landscape, I came across the Hindwell Basin and its Neolithic palisaded enclosure. Although intriguing, it struggled to hold my attention: it felt too vast, too distant. It was only when I turned to old maps that something began to resonate. The springs, wells, and rivers gradually drew me in. The Rodd sits close to the Hindwell Brook, which flows into the River Lugg just a few miles away at the hamlet of Combe. Two rivers meeting, a confluence, the intermingling of spirit and essence, offered something tangible to engage with. It captured my imagination and gave me a place to begin.
Confluence
Where the Hindwell Brook meets the River Lugg
As is common in my art practice, unearthing an area's myths and folklore often reveals my way into a sense of place, the landscape and its heritage. The Marches, historic frontier lands lying along the border between England and Wales, were no exception, as I unearthed stories of dragons, blue-footed women and tailless sows.
One recurring story in my searches was about a cantankerous-sounding mermaid living in the River Lugg by the church in the nearby village of Marden. Although it is about twenty-two miles from Presteigne, the Hindwell Brook, which flows through the Rodd’s land, connects to the River Lugg less than a mile away.
With my interest in the local rivers already piqued, learning that this freshwater mermaid inhabited them made my decision even simpler. Here was an opportunity to examine the mermaid in art, understand her role today, and explore her relationship with the ancient waterways and the lost goddesses of Celtic times. My research is ongoing.
Although I had an idea of what my interpretation of the mermaid would look like, it was only during residency that I was able to interrogate my idea further. I had prepared a face cast and ordered a hairpiece, but they only began to take shape on the studio wall over several days.
Mermaid Construction The tail.
Gustav Klimt Exploring the sensual theme of women in water.
Mermaid Skin Etching the Plate
Mermaid Skin Printing onto tracing paper
Mermaid Construction Skin pattern on fabric
Mermaid Construction Skin on metal form
Mermaid Construction Stitching multiple skins together
Mermaid Construction Close-up skin on metal form
Mermaid Construction Testing plaster cast and hair design
Mermaid Construction Testing ideas for skin pattern
Mermaid Construction Multiple skin patterns
Mermaid Construction Stitching around the tail
Mermaid Construction Face mask testing 1
Mermaid Construction Face mask testing 2
Mermaid Construction Testing plaster hand positions
Mermaid Construction The bare bones of the mermaid
Mermaid Construction Mermaid with a model Marden Bell 2
Mermaid Construction Mermaid with a model Marden Bell 3
Mermaid Construction Close up of model Marden Bell
Mermaid Construction Mermaid with a model Marden Bell 1
Inspired by the work of Gustav Klimt, I designed a simple scale-motif pattern for an etched steel plate. With only a small press to hand, I made the pattern repeatable. Drawing on my experience of intaglio printing on lightweight paper, I printed several layers and stitched them all together. I knew there had to be a reason to pack my sewing machine; the tail began to take shape.
Studying Klimt’s work, I found his angular juxtaposition of hands and limbs striking. I decided to carry this over into the uncanny positioning of the mermaid’s hands, as well as the positioning and use of a single breast.
The simple wire mesh matrix used to support the sculpture was chosen for its strength and availability. Thanks to Kiefer Whitlock, Estate Gardener & Grounds person, I like to consider it a found object. Its echo of the tail skin pattern and resemblance to a net were a bonus.
A sense of place was conveyed through my field work and site-specific recordings. Video footage captured at the confluence of the River Lugg and Hindwell Brook was layered with audio recorded outside Marden church. With rudimentary projection onto the assembled mermaid, subtle masking techniques were used to create the impression of the figure submerged beneath the water’s surface — dispersed, now silent, and still.
My interpretation of the Marden Mermaid exists somewhere between myth and reality. Merging into imagined water, she embodies the enchantment of a sea siren clinging to what appears to be a sacred Celtic bell.
Further reading on the history and folklore of the Mermaid of Marden and the Marden Bell can be found here.
But what about Sidney Nolan? After all, this was his house, and it was through his trust that I was able to be in Presteigne. I admit I felt overwhelmed at the thought of engaging directly with his work, so I set that aside for a time, choosing instead to immerse myself in Rodd Court and absorb its atmosphere. This approach led to two valuable outcomes.
Rodd Court is a large, mostly unoccupied property, a beautiful example of Jacobean architecture, yet imbued with a sense of emptiness. I began by photographing its interior, drawn to its quiet atmosphere. It was not until curator Antony Mottershead showed me the Trust’s stored works that everything began to fall into place. Seeing Nolan’s work up close, simply catalogued and stored rather than formally displayed, I started to understand. Perhaps this informal encounter was what I needed to begin relating to the man behind the work. Here was a prolific artist, working energetically across multiple media, producing series upon series of paintings and prints. I found myself transfixed by his large monochrome spray paintings created at the Burren, County Clare, Ireland. Whether this connection arose from my own heritage or from a shared engagement with the Celtic landscape and its mythology, I’m not certain. Whatever the reason, it is an area of Nolan’s work I hope to explore and respond to in greater depth.
The Celtic Images
Two images from the series inspired by Nolan’s visits to the Burren and surrounding areas.
The next time I entered Rodd Court with my camera, it felt as though I could sense Nolan’s presence lingering in the space. Wherever I walked, I imagined his footsteps, saw where he might have sat and, somewhat unexpectedly, it was the traces of his daily ablutions that transfixed me. Was this the pull of water again, I wondered. My journey through the house became shaped by the absence of the artist who had once inhabited it. Searching for Sid became the focus of my on-site work. Meanwhile, my time in the print studio unfolded as a rich exploration of simple techniques. Where Nolan had used wax crayons, I turned to photocopies, creating crude ‘Lo Fi’ photo-transfer plates. Printing and etching in the bright, spacious studio, I was completely absorbed.
Photo transfer Applying the image onto an aluminium plate
Photo transfer Applying the ground to the photocopy
Photo transfer Resulting print 1
Photo transfer Applying the ground to the photocopy
Photo transfer Resulting print 2
Photo transfer Resulting print 3
Photo transfer Resulting print 4
Photo transfer Resulting print 5
The Education Building at The Rodd Transformed into a light and spacious printmaking studio.
Photo-transfer etching
Taking the limitations of location and available resources as inspiration, I chose to experiment with a simple technique for transferring a photographic image onto a plate for etching. It involves using a simple office photocopy of a photograph, which is rolled over with Baldwin’s Ink Ground (BIG), and then transferred onto an aluminium plate by pressing the photocopy against it. The two are then run through a print press, which applies sufficient direct pressure to complete the transfer process. Once the photocopy is peeled away, the plate is baked hard, then etched in a copper sulphate saline solution. After etching, the ground is cleaned off, and the plate is printed using traditional intaglio methods.
The resulting print produced a lower-quality, ‘Lo-Fi’ rendition of my photos. This was a deliberate choice, not to illustrate literally, but to evoke a sense of nostalgia, as if glimpsed through time on a hot summer’s day. Like muslin draped across a window, softening and blurring what lies beyond. The print obscures detail and invites a more intuitive, atmospheric way of seeing. A glimpse at a past no longer there but still sensed. Still enchanted with this imagery, I am currently working on a series of plates. Interestingly, whenever I veer towards the sophisticated photo-polymer method for transferring images onto plates, my heart sinks, and the excitement fades. I return to my original on-site images to avoid forgetting the essence of what I found and the ‘Lo-Fi’ raw process I developed during my stay at the Rodd.
Soapground Etching
Applying soapground directly onto steel plates is a simple etching technique, akin to sketching outdoors. Once the ground is applied, the plates are carefully transported to the studio for etching in a copper sulphate saline solution. The soapground functions as an acid-resistant layer, enabling different areas to be bitten at various times and allowing for tonal variation. The final image is created through traditional intaglio printing on a press.
Soapground Etching Preliminary sketch
Soapground Etching Sketching onto the plate with soapground
Soapground Etching Soapground image on the plate
Soapground Etching Etching the steel plate
Soapground Etching First stage print on paper