Neil Bousfield – Below the Sea

Rabley Gallery will be exhibiting five new prints in the Land and Sea Series at the London Original Print Fair Online from 1 May.

The Land and Sea series take us on a journey through the transformation and geographical changes of a place. The hidden structures of flooded landscapes, such as lost villages along the Norfolk coast, take on abstract forms and symbolic map qualities. There are cut water surfaces anchored with the detailed line drawings of structures. Each evokes a conventional landscape reading with horizontal dissecting lines creating stone like forms reminiscent of Hepworth or Nicholson. The line fluidly engraved into the lino and wood blocks is a sensory journey.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Neil Bousfield is a British artist working in relief printmaking and contemporary wood engraving. His recent work explores the landscape narrative of the North Norfolk coast and the changing geography of time and place. He sketches on location, walks, researches and imagines to make his layered prints. The balance of gentle hues and the play of line and texture give Bousfield’s work a timeless quality.

To mark the centenary of the death of the poet Wilfred Owen on 4th November 1918, and the centenary of the end of WW1, Armistice Day 11th November 1918, Bousfield was commissioned by the Folio Society to make a series of engravings to commemorate Owen’s life and work.

Bousfield’s work is held in numerous collections including – The National Art Library; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Pallant House Gallery; Chichester University; Ohio State University Libraries, USA.

Neil Bousfield was born in Middlesbrough, UK. He studied at the University of the West of England (UWE) where he gained a Master of Arts degree in Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking, awarded with distinction in 2007. In 2009 Neil was elected a member of The Society of Wood Engravers and in 2014 to the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.