Making Dry Stone Walling for Hendon & Holborn

For my penultimate MA exhibition, I decided to return to dry stone walling and revisit and refine 'A World We Share?', a piece first presented in December at 'Up in the Air'.

'A World We Share?', 2022, by Carolyn Murphy

This work is fundamentally a large repeat pattern etching, which is embossed and hand-embellished. It's a time-consuming process because of the size of the metal etching plate, which takes time to ink up, wipe and then add a roll-over layer. It is embossed while the paper is still wet. This stage takes about an hour to complete.

Adding the roll-over

Printing

The embellishment process involves watercolour painting, ink rubs, pencil and Indian ink - all designed to emphasise texture and depth.

Adding watercolour

Embossed and embellished surface close-up

Because this is a repeat pattern it will create infinite dry stone walling and the design will match up. When I first presented the work in December 2022 it had straight edges and consisted of 3 x 4 panels, hung from an overhead support.

I was fairly happy with the piece at the time but felt it had more potential, so I decided to make one and a half times the amount - another 18 etchings. This gave me a total of over 7 square metres to play with for a new installation. At home in Manchester I experimented with the layout, finding the kitchen floor too small.

Kitchen floor checks

Testing going round corners

I also experimented with going around corners with tests in my studio space.

I particularly wanted to make more of the edges and organic form, so cut and reassembled the sections in Hendon in the BA studios where 'Present Continuous' our exhibition was taking place in September 2023.

Emphasising the edges

The result was a radical shift and the artwork was attached directly to the wall with Velcro and extended
around two corners in the space. It had the feel of a spreading organism. Cutting the work up was a leap of faith, as I had to then reassemble, using the cut piece elsewhere, like a huge jigsaw.

'A World We Share?' September 2023, Hendon

In October 2023, 'A Space We Share?' was shown as part of my first solo exhibition 'Reclaiming' at Holborn Library along with two other installation works. Here it was mounted high on a flat wall, backed by panels to aid the installation. It fitted the space well and seemed to grow out of the Library wall, fitting well with the Festival them of 'Grow'.

'A World We Share?' October 2023, Holborn Library

Making 'Below the Pike', my RA Summer Exhibition 2023 print

Since August 2022, I've been experimenting with textured, colourful collagraph techniques to create semi-abstracted landscapes. One of them, loosely based on Stoodley Pike, above Todmorden, in Yorkshire had an extreme vertical composition and a sense of layering which I found interesting and suggestive of depth and space. This is the print I decided to submit for the RA Summer Exhibition. 

'Below the Pike'

I had thought of submitting in previous years - and almost managed it in 2022 - however the MA course gave me new courage and tutors have been encouraging us to get our work out and apply for as many  opportunities as possible, so finally I submitted in January 2023, after making sure I could replicate the work in a small edition.

Drying on boards

I've included a few images of the process of making the work. It's inked up with multiple colours at the same time, later ink is wiped off, firstly with scrim (a mesh-like tarlatan cloth material), then newsprint, before putting the plate through the press. Here's the plate:

The plate

On the press

My work was shortlisted, so I delivered the framed piece to the Royal Academy, with great excitement in May 2023. 

Delivering to the RA at Coronation time!

'Below the Pike' made it to the wall - high up in Gallery 5, where I found it (eventually) on 'Varnishing Day', now a preview event only for exhibiting artists, previously the day when paintings were varnished before being exhibited. 

Exhibitor pass

Varnishing Day with fellow exhibitor Mo Nicolai

It was amazing to see the Summer Exhibition from the inside! I was convinced my work was too high to attract much attention, but I didn't mind because it was on the wall in the Royal Academy! 

It's high up!

However, fabulously 9 of the limited edition of 10 sold during the Summer Exhibition, which ran from 13 June to 20 August. The remaining print is still available online through the Royal Academy sales site, until 30 November. What an incredible experience. I plan to keep submitting every year now, just in case!

A huge thank you to everyone who visited, bought and supported me on this fantastic journey.