Peacock at Drum: The Fine Art of Printmaking

Peacock at Drum: The Fine Art of Printmaking brings together a wide range of print works realised at the Peacock workshop in Aberdeen. A hub for creative making and expression in the city, since its foundation Peacock has fostered a nurturing culture around printmaking and the vast possibilities the medium has to offer.
Featuring both local and international artists working at Peacock throughout its 48-year history, the exhibition brings together a wide array of works of dazzling diversity and originality, showcasing the inexhaustible expressions that printmaking can yield to. Its location at Drum Castle, in the gallery space on the top floor, as the final stop of the guided tour of the property, brings the works into a unique conversation with the historical fabric of the castle. The works are arranged into the rooms by technique, encompassing the four traditional printmaking methods as well as a range of innovation and experimentation within them.
The over 40 works on display, as diverse as they are original, each with a story to tell, come together to describe Peacock as a fertile meeting ground where people, stories and ideas intersect and grow.
While some artists are primarily printmakers, many of the artists exhibited here have established practices in other forms of visual arts, such as painting or sculpture. The prints they realised, therefore, are the result of a close collaboration with the printmakers at Peacock, who assist artists in the process and often carry out the proofing and editioning for them.
Places and portraits populate the etching room, ranging from Donald Urquhart’s sleek black and white celebrity portraits to Joyce Cairns’ lyrical narrative of Aberdeen’s Footdee. Some of the works, such as Dawson Murray or Adam Bridgeland’s prints, celebrate the serendipity of artmaking, embracing the unexpected diversions and pathways that can spring up from a dynamic, energetic workplace.
In lithography, the works range from examples of expressive draughtsmanship, such as Pat Douthwaite’s gestural works, to explorations of the very boundaries of the medium, such as Elspeth Lamb’s complex, colourful lithographs integrating traditional Japanese techniques. At the centre of the show, the mixed media room gives a taste to some of the infinite ways that different methods can be integrated to create something entirely unique.
Some rooms elicit curious conversations between artists working in the same medium but with completely different styles. In the room dedicated to relief prints, Tom Hammick’s reduction woodcuts from the Lunar Voyage series are an eerie, melancholic representation of interstellar travel, while Doug Cocker’s visions of outer space border on the nightmarish and the surreal. In screenprinting, Frances Walker’s meditative, personal view of an Antarctic coastal landscape sits alongside Marie Velardi’s poignant yet subtle call for attention to the risks of human intervention on shorelines.
As a means of communication and expression, printmaking has existed for centuries. What sets it aside from other creative practices is the possibility of reproduction and an indirect mark-making process, where the image realised by the artist is transferred from a block, plate, stone or stencil onto paper. Printmaking marries a careful balance between creative expression and the technical skills required to handle tools and machinery. From the first proofs to the final editioning, each print balances technique, experience, and a vibrant artistic sense. At the same time, as in every artform, printmaking also allows to embrace the unexpected and the unforeseen, letting stones, plates and inks shape the process.
Exhibition views
Exhibition works

Adam Bridgland, Fables, 2011
76.5 x 57 cm
three-plate etching, edition of 20
£295 (unframed) / £345 (framed)

John Byrne, Moonlighting, 2011
102.5 x 73.5 cm
three-plate photo etching, edition of 18
£3000 (unframed) / £3,100 (framed)

John McLean, Granite Suite 1, 2002
51 x 48.5 cm
two-plate etching with chine collé, edition of 20
£500 (unframed) / £550 (framed)

Dawson Murray, Silent Garden Edge, 2011
78 x 96 cm
three-plate etching with pochoir, edition of 18
£800 (unframed) / £900 (framed)

Ralph Steadman, Virginia Woolf III, 1996
55 x 40.5 cm
etching with relief roll, edition of 20
£600 (unframed) / £675 (framed)

Donald Urquhart, Glaikit, 2012
71 x 52.5 cm
etching, edition of 20
£375 (unframed) / £425 (framed)

Donald Urquhart, Sleekit, 2012
71 x 52.5 cm
etching, edition of 20
£375 (unframed) / £425 (framed)

Frances Walker, Tiree Window, 2018
45 x 40 cm
etching with aquatint, edition of 30
£700 (unframed) / £750 (framed)

Andrew Cranston, Blues, 2019
53 x 62.5 cm
lithograph, edition of 5
£500 (unframed) / £550 (framed)

Louise Davidge, Sequence, 2012
94 x 68 cm
lithograph and screenprint, edition of 14
£200 (unframed) / £270 (framed)

Pat Douthwaite, Cat in a Teapot, 1988
76 x 56.5 cm
lithograph, edition of 20
£500 (unframed) / £550 (framed)

Erica Eyres, Monica, 2020
76 x 56 cm
lithograph with screenprint, edition of 20
£200 (unframed) / £250 (framed)

Joe Fan, Fruit Eater, 2010
51 x 38 cm
lithograph with chine collé, edition of 16
£150 (unframed) / £200 (framed)

Elspeth Lamb, Ginko, 2003
53 x 25 cm
lithograph, edition of 10
£250 (unframed) / £300 (framed)

Judy Stapleton, Enter, 2015
30 x 30 cm
lithograph with screenprint, edition of 20
£350 (unframed) / £400 (framed)

Judy Stapleton, Re-Enter, 2015
30 x 30 cm
lithograph with screenprint, edition of 20
£350 (unframed) / £400 (framed)

Carol Dunbar, Midsummer 1906, 2000
68 x 57 cm
screenprint with chine collé, edition of 40
£120 (unframed) / £170 (framed)

Amy Gear, Umbra, 2013
56 x 97 cm
etching with emboss, edition of 12
£200 (unframed) / £250 (framed)

Ian Howard, Reliquary, 1995
106 x 76 cm
lithograph with screenprint, bronzing and etching, edition of 10
£550 (unframed) / £650 (framed)

David Noonan, Untitled, 2013
84.1 x 59.4 cm
screenprint with de-emboss, edition of 50
£500 (unframed) / £550 (framed)

Ragna Róbertsdóttir, Patterns of Energy 1 + 2, 2006
44 x 40.5 cm (each)
relief print from lava stone and emboss, edition of 20
£600 (unframed) / £650 (framed)

Frances Walker, Wild Shore, 2015
76 x 106 cm
etching with screenprint, edition of 26
£3,000 (unframed) / £3,100 (framed)

Claire Barclay, Untitled (from Set Shift), 2014
100 x 50 cm
relief print, edition of 5
Enquiries welcome

Claire Barclay, Untitled (from Set Shift), 2014
100 x 50 cm
relief print, edition of 5
Enquiries welcome

Doug Cocker, Mostri 2, 1992
107.5 x 142.5 cm
Relief print, edition of 8
£600 (unframed) / £700 (framed)

Tom Hammick, Garden, 2017
135 x 105 cm
edition variable reduction woodcut, edition of 16
£8,400 (unframed) / £8,650 (framed)

Tom Hammick, Lunography, 2017
166 x 122 cm
edition variable reduction woodcut, edition of 16
£12,600 (unframed) / £12,850 (framed)

Janice Kerbel, Blast, 2014
84 x 60 cm
relief print
£300 (unframed) / £350 (framed)

Toby Paterson, Randomised Array, 2011
50 x 66 cm
linocut, edition of 22
£900 (unframed) / £950 (framed)

Ralph Steadman, Damoiselles D’Avignon, 2016
46.5 x 56.5 cm
linocut, edition of 20
£437 (unframed) / £487 (framed)

Sólveig Aðalsteinsdóttir, Walk, 2014
65 x 46.5 cm
screenprint, edition of 20
£300 (unframed) / £350 (framed)

Bob Batchelor, Crathes Border, 1993
56 x 76 cm
screenprint, edition of 62
£300 (unframed) / £350 (framed)

Adam Bridgland, Lullabies, 2013
56 x 76 cm
screenprint, edition of 40
£375 (unframed) / £425 (framed)

Raydale Dower, The Gift - two views of the same object, 2017
74.5 x 56 cm,
screenprint, edition of 25
£440 (unframed) / £490 (framed)

Nicola Galloway, Saucepan Annie, 2005
58 x 76 cm
screenprint, edition of 30
£300 (unframed) / £350 (framed)

William Moulding, Veranderlijk, 2014
70 x 100 cm
screenprint, edition of 20
£350 (unframed) / £400 (framed)

Rosalind Nashashibi, A Brute Piece of Reality / Carmen, 2017
96.5 x 76 cm
screenprint, edition of 30
£700 (unframed) / £800 (framed)

Mick Peter, The Nose Epilogue 1, 2011
69.5 x 49.5 cm
screenprint, edition of 24
£200 (unframed) / £250 (framed)

Mick Peter, The Nose Epilogue 2, 2011
69.5 x 49.5 cm
screenprint, edition of 24
£200 (unframed) / £250 (framed)

Claire Roberts, Busy Lizzie, 2003
76 x 57 cm
screenprint, edition of 40
£350 (unframed) / £400 (framed)

Ralph Steadman, Will Shakespeare, 1993
102 x 77.5 cm
screenprint, edition of 50
£1,000 (unframed) / £1,070 (framed)

Marie Velardi, Coastal Realignment 1872-1950-2003 (RSPB, Nigg Bay Nature Reserve), 2016
70.5 x 100 cm
screenprint, edition of 20
£600 (unframed) / £700 (framed)

Frances Walker, Antarctic Shore Walk, 2011
53.5 x 49 / 53.5 x 86 / 53.5 x 49 cm
screenprint, edition of 36
£3,500 (unframed) / £3,600 (framed)