Between the 4th of May and July 31st the NWM at Ellesmere Port is playing host to an atmospheric exhibition of linocut art by celebrated canal artist Eric Gaskell.
The show features works looking at a variety of canal-based motifs; the lock gates, the tumbling water, townscapes and landscape, the boats. Some are created more than once using different colour sets and print techniques.
All the prints are taken from limited edition sets, printed using either multi-block or reduction methods. There are also a number of new black and white prints, some as part of the “Canal Linocut” series and other one-off editions. The official Canal & River Trust poet laureate, Jo Bell, will be showing a number of her poems alongside Eric Gaskell’s prints.
Eric Gaskell says: “The eddying waters, the still water, the rain peppered surfaces. The multi-storey, the warehouse, the cottage and the boatyard. The barge, the boat, the lock-gate, the keel and the ropework. All these things and more keep me returning to the canal as a continuing source of inspiration to create figurative and abstract image.”
This new set of work uses a variety of lino and relief printmaking techniques, and looks at both the small things on the canal, the gear, the gates and the big things. The work covers a wide range of motifs, that I think combine to give a different view – my view – of the canal.”
Eric Gaskell has been creating art, illustration and design for more than 32 years and has exhibited widely in one-man and group shows in the UK, Europe and the USA. He has work in many private collections and his small book “Canal Linocuts” (available online) has become a cult book for collectors. Eric is running a Linocut Workshop at Ellesmere Port on Saturday 15th June – for more details and application form see the Canal Junction Events page.
Jo Bell, the first ‘Canal Laureate’, is a poet, archaeologist and boat-dweller, working all over the UK on poetry projects large and small. As well as her recent role as director of National Poetry Day, Jo has also been Glastonbury Festival poet in residence and Cheshire Poet Laureate.
