Heike Roesel "Schatzkarte" (treasure map), fine art etching, edition of 25 - Limited Edition 10 of 25 Print

My discovery of Fine Art Printmaking during the first 4 weeks of my art foundation course changed my creative practice and turned me into a printmaker for life. My journey continued through a printmaking BA (hons) and working in various studios, teaching lithography and etching. Since 2009 I have been working in my studio in central Brighton /UK where I developed acrylic resist etching techniques. The studio uses these techniques and we are continuously experimenting with new materials and ideas. My inspiration and motivation is the pure love of creating imaginative worlds that inspire the viewer to find their own stories. Those stories can feed back and form the base for a new idea, as much as a landmark, a book or an unusual event can do. Working with the steel plates and the etching materials pushes my ideas forward, sometimes in unexpected ways. Etching is a wonderful medium to allow for step-by-step building up of an image. The process of making a new etching forces me to re-think my original idea, right through till the last stage of inking the plates and pulling the print. My etchings can be described as semi-abstract landscapes of vibrant colours, with wriggling lines, floating hills, beaches and seascapes. Some of the artists I find most influential to my work are Helen Frankenthaler, Barbara Rae, David Kelso, Louise Davis amongst many others. The Austrian painter Hundertwasser’s work had a strong influence on my own practise for many years. Like me he, did not like straight lines, because they limit the imagination, and imagination is the most important source of my creativity. It is what else there can be. “And the printed result is never quite what you imagine. It is a surprise. It is an art around the corner.” Hundertwasser in “Hundertwasser’s complete graphic work 1951-1976”, page 24, Prestel Verlag