Linda Nevill's etchings, collagraphs and monoprints

Linda Nevill BA Hons, MA Hons is an artist who explores her passions for wildlife, plants and gardens, travel, light and colour through the prints and paintings that she creates.

She is fascinated by the pursuing of an idea and the unpredictability of process.

Linda has studied in the UK, Albuquerque and New York and participated in numerous exhibitions.

She is co-founder and Chair of Image Text Image, a group of artists and writers who collaborate to produce contemporary art and poetry.

Safer/non-toxic printmaking methods and practices are important and have often led to innovatory approaches.

Artist/printmaker Linda Nevill producing non-toxic intaglio etchings, collagraphs and monoprints. Akua water-based inks. Current work focuses on atmospheric seascapes produced using Akua Kolor water-based inks. Has degrees from the universities of Edinburgh and Wolverhampton, has also taken courses with Keith Howard. I am an artist based in the West Midlands, England. As a printmaker I specialise in unique, original prints and limited, hand printed editions. These are made using traditional and innovative processes such as etching, monoprinting and lino printing. Although I work with a range of themes, I continually return to images and memories of the sea. I was born, and lived for many years, in the seaside town of Brighton. As a small child I enjoyed sitting on the pebbles with my bucket and spade waiting for the tide to go out and the sand to be revealed. I turned the pebbles over in my hands, listened to and smelled the sea. It was a mass of sensations that has made a lasting impact on me. My work is concerned with moods and emotions, often evoked through colour and texture. These are linked mainly to natural forms, such as rock, sand and pebbles, often situated at the coast. Producing work for a calendar and exhibition entitled 'Soul of Things Ended' for the recycling company Bywaters helped me to focus on some of my ideas about re-cycling and care for the environment. I enjoyed making a soft ground etching of ferns and plants with hand drawn marks suggesting rock strata and combined it with collaged shapes of bottles and cans made from re-cycled papers. These commonly discarded items of litter could easily re-cycled and the countryside preserved. I also produced monoprints including one with a Haiku on the theme of Re-cycling. My experience of visiting Death Valley in the USA made me very much aware of the importance of water in extreme heat. The beautiful, warm oranges, pinks and reds of the desert seemed at odds with the deadly climate. A wall side thermometer at a ranch showed 100 degrees Fahrenheit at 10 am and made clear the importance of shade and water. I was born in Brighton on the South Coast of England. I had a happy childhood and I spent many hours sitting on the pebbled beach watching the gulls and waves. We measured the tide by its position on the pier which floated or even disappeared on misty days. I loved the Brighton Pavilion with its oriental domes and I combined them with fairy tales and stories I created. My earliest memory is of standing with my father and looking into a field and watching a donkey roll over and over. Straight hair was a problem and it had to be cut, curled or tied back. I shifted position and wriggled and struggled and my paintbrush fringe was chopped shorter and shorter. Saturday morning ballet lessons led to wearing a tutu and dancing on stage. Sundays we often played Snakes and Ladders or Ludo. The games were intense and hours passed quickly. Afterwoods, I would search the garden for snakes. Once I found a grass snake on the front doorstep, sliding into the doll's bed. I knew that animals lurked everywhere, especially in the dark. At night, I reported all sightings of elephants, snakes, lions and tigers to my parents who brought me a glass of water and told me to sleep. Fact and fantasy, reality and imagination melted together in dreams. The street I first lived in, the local 'Pepper Box' building and images of myself as a baby all combine to make a screenprint over printed with cyanotypes (blueprints). My digital images of memories of my childhood link to the beach and sea and Brighton Pavilion but also to the fantasy animals watching me through my bedroom window I also remember the games I played, the ballet lessons I had, the agony of having my hair cut.