PRINTMAKING

Printingmaking, like digital design, is all about process and problem-solving.

Multi-plate printing allows more margin for error. But I enjoy the mental puzzle and risk of a linocut reduction print: using a single piece of linoleum, cutting more away each time, to gradually build up a print, layer by layer. The beauty of this method is that, once the lino is further cut to make the second colour layer, there is no going back. And if you have started with ten copies of the print, these are the only ones which will ever exist.

The hardest thing to learn in printmaking is patience. Think twice, cut once.

This piece personifies the Mercado Sonora in Mexico City, a labyrinthine and sinister witchcraft market in the heart of the capital.

A multi-plate print, it can therefore be printed again and again in different colourways.

My work is all about the human face.

Peeling back the paper from a lino plate and the reveal of a face excites me as much today as it did the first time.

I spent ten years, off and on, in Mexico, a country steeped in history, culture and colour. It will never leave me or cease to inspire me. I left behind portraits of Frida Kahlo, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata behind when I returned to Europe.

I worked at the Taller Imagen Del Rinoceronte, in the south of Mexico City, for two years. It was a daily hour-long trek by bus from my home in la colonia Roma, but worth it.

Under the tutelage of Humberto Valdez and Orietta Aguilar, I did my utmost to improve with each piece.

I owe these mentors, and their country, absolutely everything.

@warrencrawfordart

“I’ve never seen anyone improve as quickly as this hijoeputa”

Humberto Valdez, México DF 2017

Upon my return to Europe, I found my options limited for large-scale relief printmaking, and decided to join a local screen printing studio, Inkspot Press in Hove.

I continued my pop themes with this medium, and gained a huge amount of knowledge from Jane Sampson and her partner Andy White in my two years working at this studio.