‘Can We Be Friends?’ – Flocked Screen Print on MDF Board, Dual-sided – 56.6cm × 780cm × 1cm

This work explores the notion of print as sculpture and the idea that the image can break out from the picture plane and become something tangible, something life-like.

The work attempts to straddle a line between printmaking and sculpture, using large abstract screen-printed forms, coloured flocking fibres, and a MDF signpost-like structure that protrudes out into the gallery.

Flock is used to give the prints body, printing the surface with specialist glues and flocking the forms to create tactile protrusions that skin the MDF board.

Both sides of the MDF board are used to make a double-faced print. This two-sided print disregards the usual front and back of a printed surface, instead exploring the interplay of elements across both sides of the work.

The MDF board is displayed in the gallery like a sign-post, projecting out from the wall, allowing a near 360º view of the printed surfaces and the compositions they make.

The printed component of the work is made up of four layers, with each layer being flocked in blue or white. The images are abstract forms developed over time in my studio. They are fragments extracted from past works and the build-up of materials that occupy my studio practice.

Through their mode of display and furry skin-like relief, these printed forms interact with each other creating a narrative between elements, a dialogue between parts, progressing this idea that the printed surface itself can be a sculptural medium that occupies 3-dimensional space as well as the picture plane.

Y Lle Celf,  Eisteddfod, Summer 2025