Private views were a bit like buses at the beginning of April; none for months then two in five days. Red Hot Impressions which runs from 5 April to 18 June 2011, is the first collaboration between Red Hot Press Printmaking Workshop and The Art House, Southampton’s not-for-profit café gallery and arts venue. It’s a great venue right in the city centre so we were very excited to be asked to show there.
The Art House has a lively programme of events including art, music and poetry, and workshops in just about anything you can think of, from English folk fiddle to drumming, and sign language to beadwork. They even run a workshop on how to run a workshop! The venue also provides a meeting place for a number of groups which include writers, knitting, language café and a group which makes stuff out of scrap anything – very much in line with The Art House’s green ethics. The café serves vegan food prepared and cooked on site, grown organically and locally sourced where possible. And those who run the show, mostly volunteers, are great. What’s not to like about this place?
Red Hot Impressions includes original prints from sixteen members of Red Hot Press and covers a wide range of printmaking techniques; etching, linocut, woodcut, drypoint, letterpress, screen printing, collagraph, gum transfer, monprinting… I’ve probably forgotten some. A full and varied show! We had fun hanging the exhibition - a team of seven of us did it in just under three hours, and during that time, I think we put every print on just about every screw in the gallery! It all came together really well in the end though. Here’s the Art House’s blog with some pictures of us hanging the show. The opening was well-attended; the wine flowed, thanks to the Art House crew, and work sold. All in all, a very pleasant evening. More pictures here. If you haven’t paid a visit to The Art House, jog on down and have a coffee and some of their superb home-made cake - surrounded by excellent works of art of course!
