In June we welcomed multidisciplinary artist Monica Marshall (aka Clownchic) to undertake a four day residency at the Print Clan studio. Monica is currently studying an MLitt in Fine Art Practice at the Glasgow School of Art, specialising in Print Media, and works with painting, printmaking and drawing. After meeting Monica back in April we thought a residency would be a perfect opportunity for her to try a new approach to printmaking whilst working in a new environment outside of university. Arianna worked closely with her to develop her screen printing, working with large scale screens to produce a number of pieces. Thanks to Monica for reflecting on her experiences of the residency.

​​For my residency at Print Clan I decided to focus on using cheap bedding as a surface to print on. A lot of my practice features domestic settings – albeit grotesque, dystopian versions – so I decided to work with domestic materials and emphasise the physicality in my artwork. Some of the pillow cases were torn to create a long strip of fabric like a banner, whereas I kept the duvet covers whole, and I intend to exhibit these at the upcoming Master of Letters show at GSA. The yellow piece will be suspended from a bracket and stuffed with a duvet to convey the sense of a soiled nappy, bin bag or some other unpleasant bulbous object, especially given the muddy yellow, brown and green colour scheme. I really liked how the ink would often seep onto the other side of the fabric, giving the illusion of mould, staining and skid marks. 

I liked the traces my prints left on the table’s backing cloth alongside all the other imprints from others who have used the space; it gives you a feel for the history and diversity of the work people created and continue to create in the studio.

One of the other aspects of the residency was that it gave me a chance to try something I wouldn’t have originally thought of doing, as I never normally work with textiles and I’m less familiar with screen printing than other processes. I thought it was interesting and effective to convert one form of printmaking into another: a few of the prints I made were using an etching I had made at GSA that was then manipulated and exposed onto a screen. Initially I was a little intimidated due to being in an unfamiliar environment and using completely different materials and methods, but once I relaxed I really enjoyed playing with the materials more and using an experimental approach.

More of Monica’s work can be found on her website & Instagram.