David Skingle

Studio-based printmaking including photography, mark making, etching, screen-printing and book making; printmaking and Zen; Japanese art and culture; the cross-cultural in relation to Western artistic visual practice.

"Looking at the paintings, screen prints, mono-prints and dry-points of David Skingle one is aware of a quiet insistent state of being. Initiated by painting, the colour, marks and surface are reinstated by screen and mono-printing - the chance of process demanding a re-examination of the essential transferable content. This evolution continues with the monochrome dry-points where emphasis shifts to the autographic mark and where Hiroshige emerges from Tapies. All the images share motifs - the hint of a ceremonial sword (in fact bound wooden skewers made as a gift for him by his daughter Katherine) being an obvious overlay but more equally shared is a procession of touch that responds to the chosen medium. The idea accepts mediation by materials used with a precision that is almost self-effacing. The sun and age-blistered doors of Barcelona, an evening squall at Ōhashi, are here combined, and celebrate with clarity, consequential acts and thought."

"David Skingle dreams of Zen, aligning his printmaking process withteaching and the sensibility of accidental discovery. His fascination with Japanese culture reminds us that it was in China and Japan that the invention of printing occurred long before Europe perfected the basics ofprinting that were to transform the culture. The notions of control predictability and repetition and hence important discovery are the hallmarks of cultures that understand printing. In Western Culture there would be no Gates without Gutenberg. David`s concern is with nuances and hidden layers. The ritual of the print room and the simple beauty of printprocess, ink on to paper, the logical interdependence of positive and negative, the climatic revelation of the action of the press are his methodical adventures. Unlike the situation with other art forms, the visual artist is invariably a teacher, but not necessarily in a formal sense. Every artist who presents their work in public takes on something of the role."