Linocuts from the Home Fields

The linocuts in this room come from artists who work close to the land they cut, and the marks carry that proximity. Blocks are printed by hand in small runs, so the ink sits unevenly and the paper grain stays visible at the edges. The gallery shows the prints alongside the working drawings, which lets a visitor follow how a field edge becomes a carved shape and then a finished sheet.

Pasture, thorn and plough marks all end up as bold carved lines. Nothing here is tidied into a smooth surface. Where the block was cut against the grain, the sheet keeps a rougher edge, and that is usually the part worth standing in front of for a while.