Two-Step / Selvedge to Selvedge
In between lockdowns last year, members Fraser Taylor & Beth Shapeero managed to work on a new series of prints in the Print Clan studio, as part of their ongoing collaboration Two-Step.
Two-Step / Selvedge to Selvedge took advantage of the studio’s 10-metre print table, with the artists pinning cloth along the full length of the table, before constructing forms and marks using silkscreen and mono-printing techniques. The scale of the works demands a physicality in printing; the squeegee is passed between artists halfway across the width of the table as it pushes the ink through the silkscreen mesh and transfers the image to the cloth. Ladders are used to view the works from above, mid-printing; to ‘step-back’ and consider the relationships between the marks, colour and scale.
“Print Clan’s 10-metre print table is an amazing facility. It allows for large scale single image work to be printed as well as repeat patterns. There is no other open access print studio in Glasgow that provides this for one day hire or longer extended periods. Print clan also offers technical support if required. Two-Step / Selvedge to Selvedge was made over a short period of time. This was made possible by the expertise and commitment of Print Clan.”
The use of cloth refers to Taylor’s history in textile printing and is a departure for the pair’s work to date, which has been predominantly silkscreen mono-prints on paper. The printed cloth exists intentionally as visual artwork, yet they hum with potential for different uses - fashion and the domestic. The works are a new medium for Shapeero and they sing a song of collaboration; an expertise shared, a practice disrupted and the creation of something new.
Shapeero and Taylor met in Summer 2017 at Studio Pavilion at House for an Art Lover, where they were both artists in residence. They were drawn to one another’s work, noticing their distinctly shared aesthetic and process. The similarity of their separate outputs, and the velocity of their relationship, generates a trust in each other that allows both voices to be present and equal at every stage of the process. Since meeting they have produced hundreds of monotypes, a number of ambitious installations and undertaken postal collaborations during COVID-19 lockdown periods – a way of connecting throughout the disruption. The collaboration has become an important part of their creative practices and continues to grow.
Photos by Ruth Mitchell
Two-Step / Selvedge to Selvedge has been installed vertically within the window gallery spaces of The Briggait, just a short walk from the Print Clan studio. The work can be viewed from the street, offering an opportunity to see the work in real life, even in the strictest COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
Beth is an emerging artist from Nottingham who has lived and worked in Glasgow since 2011. Fraser, originally from Glasgow, is an established artist and has spent a significant part of his career working in Chicago where he was a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Beth graduated from BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University in 2008 before relocating to Glasgow for the M.Litt in Fine Art Practice in 2011. Fraser graduated from GSA in 1981 with a BA in Printed Textiles and an MA in 1983 from the RCA in London. He returned to live and work in Glasgow in 2017.
Two-Step / Selvedge to Selvedge can be seen from outside The Briggait until 26th April.