Burrinja presents a dual exhibition of contemporary print-making practice with a focus on lino print applications.
The British painter and illustrator Claude Flight (1881-1955) is generally credited with popularising the colour lino print beginning in the late 1910s. Flight wasn’t the first artist to use a linoleum block to carve a relief print, but he made it his mission to bring the medium to the attention of fine artists and collectors.
As the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, New York) notes on its website, Flight saw in it ‘the potential for a truly democratic art form’. Similar to woodblock printing, it involves creating a type of relief made from linoleum (from the Latin linum ‘flax’ and oleum ‘oil’). Traditionally used as a floor covering made from linseed oil and cork, it has proved to be a popular medium due to its simplicity and accessibility.
Despite linocut being a relatively new art form, it is applied in innovative and contemporary ways in the 21st century as this exhibition demonstrates. Works on display range from typical two-dimensional framed prints, in traditional black and coloured inks, to three-dimensional free-standing figurative and other imaginative applications, and of course books. These superbly express the many possibilities lino printing offers, with artists expressing personal themes and depicting beloved locations near them.
