The Camberwell graduates A1 and A0 colour screen prints are playful, colourful and unmissable.
Wandering around the Camberwell campus on exhibition day, a can of Red Stripe in hand, i had taken my time to look over all of the other courses (such as graphic design and photography) first before making my way over to see illustration last. And i’m glad i did. As anyone else who was there would agree, you couldn’t enter the room without immediately being drawn towards Alexander James Wood‘s large scale screen prints, taking up most of the wall they were hanging from. The images have everything needed for a satisfied viewing, bright, complimenting colour to draw your eye and subtle intricate detail to keep it there.
The successful use of bold black line almost creates a structure and grid form in which Alex perfectly fills with colour to accurately depict the theme and mood of each setting. Matching up an intricate six or seven colour screen print isn’t the easiest things to do at a normal scale, so considering the images are A1 and A0, Alex pulls off an almost impossible task although his images are not without the subtle off centred over laps of colour and line. However if anything this only adds to the grandness of his images and reminds the audience of the labour intensive method of how they were printed.
This obviously wasn’t an easy task to complete and i’m sure it wasn’t without its ups and downs and attempts and failure’s before creating the final piece’s. You could criticise that Alex could have downgraded the size of the prints, but this would have downgraded the whole atmosphere created by them. The large scale allows you to get lost in one area of the tables shadow cast over the wooden floor boards to then switch your gaze to the vibrant cupboard hidden behind a half open door which equally pops with colour. A quality which wouldn’t be found in an A3 print.
