Bill Pryde: London | Suffolk | Scotland

Since mastering the art of printmaking, Bill Pryde’s visual enquiry has taken him around the globe in pursuit of his images. From the serenity of Japanese rock gardens, to the foreboding volcanic landscape of Lanzarote, Pryde builds worlds through extensive explorations of form and colour, using a palette infused with the intense, sun-scorched pigments of India and the weather-beaten organic tones of his native Scotland.

The places that Pryde calls home have always had a strong influence on his work, but in this new exhibition they are brought to the fore. The coastlines and countryside around his Suffolk studio, the Hampstead Ponds in London where he regularly swims and the Scottish icons that he invariably accompanies with a story from his childhood all feature.

Having such a deep and personal connection to a subject grants an artist the insight and familiarity needed to truly capture a sense of place. Think William Crozier’s depictions of Winchester meadows or Milton Avery’s explorations of Cape Cod, both artists admired by Bill. A viewer who has visited the places in Pryde’s work will recognise them, but the images he creates are completely inseparable from the person who made them. 

Pryde specialises in the art of screenprinting, a versatile printmaking technique allowing the artist to apply fields of colour onto the surface, creating a luminosity and depth in the layering of pigments. Rather than producing strictly identical multiples as most printmakers would aim for, Pryde takes a more dynamic, experimental approach. He pushes each composition to its limit by moving around the forms on each screen between prints, and introduces elements of chance by blocking out sections of a screen using unstable materials, resulting in unique works.

London  |  Suffolk  |  Scotland is Pryde’s second solo presentation at Bermondsey Project Space, having also taken part in a group exhibition of artists from the famed Curwen Gallery, where he exhibited regularly. Throughout his printmaking career, Pryde has exhibited extensively in London, Scotland and throughout the UK, and in 2010 he held a solo exhibition at the Bengal Government Gallery in Calcutta, India. Examples of his work are held in private collections internationally.