What I like in the prints by Clare Curtis is the independence from photos which leaves the space to introduce phantasy and imagination into the design.

As an example, I chose the print “The landing”, a citiscape which condenses several elements of the town into a single view. The perspective is “unrealistic” but the image works.

I feel that this was a problem in my reduction linoprint – I developed the design from a photo but stayed very close to the original. I did not use my creativity to change the image. My approach worked well to get experience with the technique and I also developed my mark-making, but I think from an artistic point of view there’s something missing. On the other hand, I found the subject so nice and wouldn’t have known what to change for the better. Maybe it’s just two different things, working from photos versus working from imagination.

What characterizes the style of Clare Curtis?

Another linocut that I found very characteristic for her style was “Woodland”, showing
– extreme simplification and stylized shapes, eg trees and other organic forms
– a muted colour palette
– the white of the paper becomes part of the image
– an unusual, phantasy-like perspective

Things to adopt?

I do acknowledge that the simplification of shapes makes it easy to cut the lino, but to be honest, I do not really like the outcome in this particular case. The result is too stylized for my taste. In particular the Woodland linoprint doesn’t work for me because the title implies natural, organic forms but the print evokes a feeling of artificiality.