St Facebook. from series Later Day Saints. - Limited Edition 1 of 5 Print

Artist Alan Birch has been working with print for over 25 years, His work imbued with a sense of the surreal, can be found in collections at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, The Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool and Touchstones,Rochdale and numerous private collections in the Uk and overseas. Recent work: Later-Day Saints. Over the the last three years I have been working on a series of prints, initially monoprints, which take their starting point from the collection of saintly wood carvings in the Wellcome Collection at The Science Museum in London . The depiction of saints is a subject I have been long fascinated with, whether in paintings or adorning churches. Found in illustrations or adorning religious spaces, the power, durability and spirituality of these works has remained, strongly linked to faith. Originally used as comforting symbols for followers, the depicted icons offered hope and solace from medical and personal difficulties. A typical example being St Apollonia, the patron saint of tooth problems, martyred by having her teeth pulled, often depicted in illustrations having her teeth extracted. The seed for this series was sown earlier this year when the media reported that Roberto Mancini had been to church prior to the Manchester City game which secured the Premier League title. His prayers along with thousands of others ( mine among them,) were answered as the game was won against the odds. A sporting miracle! Even in these contemporary times faith and devotion are still strong. From this moment St Last Minute, the patron saint of football fans was born. There followed 80 other monoprints , introducing saints Kindle, Lotto , Tweetus and Selfie to a new audience.As well as being a prolific artist he runs print workshops from his studio in Waterfoot and in galleries ans schools and is print specialist at the Whitworth and works at Tate Liverpool. www.alanbirch.co.uk www.dogsinspace.co.uk