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Veta Gorner is a multidisciplinary artist based in the UK. She works across various media but her main interests and specialism are printmaking and graphic arts. With a background in architecture, design, and publishing, Veta is both a scrupulous craftsman and an acute cultural observer.
Having made the UK her home over 20 years ago, Veta set up her studio not long after. She continues to be a busy working artist ever since, consistently building her practice and knowledge of the art form; she actively participates in numerous shows and relentlessly contributes to the art of print. In 2016 she was elected a full Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, a unique mark of professional distinction from an esteemed international cultural institution.
Veta remains an innovator at heart, using a synthesis of approaches, methods, and disciplines in her original work. She strives to animate and invigorate the century-old art of print with new approaches to the process; and bring a little dash of curiosity and grace into the world.
Veta’s work often examines changes humans endure and bring into being. Growing up in the 1980s and across a number of cultures she is interested in both technological and ethical, and the subsequent unease and tensions between personal and social frequently feature in her work.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Currently working from her own studio near Stamford, UK (set up in 2014) and her second studio in Northern Sweden.
Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE, since 2016)
(2003-9) Member of the Greenwich Printmakers Association (www.greenwich-printmakers.org.uk).
(2003) Associate member at the PRINTSPACE Studio/Gallery (2 Bear Gardens, SE1, London).
(2002) Studied printmaking at Morley College, London.
Previous (1996-2002) experience includes working for various publishing and advertising companies and clients as art-director, graphic designer and illustrator.
EDUCATION
(1993-8) St. Petersburg State Artistic and Industrial Academy [(formerly pre-1998) “Muhina School of Industrial Arts”, St. Petersburg]. Degree in Interior Design and Architecture.
NOTABLE SOLO SHOWS
“Hymns” Eames Fine Art 2023
“Moving Parts” Eames Fine Art 2021
“Out Brief Candle ” Eames Fine Art 2020
PUBLICATIONS
“I am fascinated by the expressive nature of human motion and its dialogue with space. I construct and engineer my forms instead of drawing directly from life and build suggestions of meaning into my compositions and visual provocations.
As much as I am concerned with the conceptual side of my work, I am interested in stretching the creative possibilities of the materials I work with. Whether it is a zinc, steel, or copper plate matrixes, which I treat as a sculptural medium, or semi-transparent paper, which I use to layer individual images to create an illusion of depth or references of shifts in time, I strive to meticulously choose the materials that would be a joy for the senses and a thrill for the mind. Beyond printmaking, I paint, draw, sculpt, make, and design.
But I always come back to print.
My work is a celebration of life and a reflection upon its highs and lows and tensions in between. It is concerned not only with physical structure but also with the thoughts and emotions that move us into action. It is also about how the environments we inhabit shape and change us.
My work is about life, which is movement.”
RECENT SHOWS
2023, 2022, 2021 - Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London
2023, 2022, 2021 - National Original Printmaking Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London
2023, 2021 - Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
2020.11 - "Moving Parts” solo show at Eames Fine Art Gallery, London
2020.11 - "Common Place” collaborative project in Eames Fine Art Printroom
2020.11 - "Printmakers in Lockdown" group show in Bankside Gallery, London
2020.02-04 - "Out Brief Candle” solo show, Eames Fine Fine Art Gallery
2019.11 - “Masters” at Bankside Gallery
2020 - Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
2019.11 - “Age of Loneliness”, multi-print installation for the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair
2019 - Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
2019.05 - “Originals” group show at Bankside Gallery
2019.05 - London Original Print Fair
2018.10 - “Masters” at Bankside gallery
2018.09 - National Original Printmaking Exhibition
2018.06-08 - Royal Academy Summer Show 250
2018.05 - “Originals” at Bankside Gallery
2018.05 - London Original Print Fair
current publications: "Pressing Matters" (N12, 2020), "Printmaking Today" (2020),"Enki" architecture (Dec 2020)
SELECTED PREVIOUS SHOWS
2017.05 - London Original Print Fair, London
2016.11 - Masters: Etching curated by Norman Ackroyd, London
2016.09 - National Original Printmaking Exhibition (NOPE), London
2016.04 - London Original Print Fair, London
2015.11 - "Masters:relief printmaking", Bankside Gallery, London
2015.05 - Affordable Art Fair, Hong Kong
2015.05 - London Original Print Fair
2014.07 - Inverness, Castle Gallery
2013.07 - "Gravity", two person show, Biscuit Factory, Newcastle
2012.10 - "Parallel Play", solo show at Ben Oakley Gallery, London
2012.09 - "Where's the Original?", Bankside Gallery, London
2012.04 - London Printmakers at the National Theatre
2011.05 - London Printmakers @ OXO gallery
2010.10 - London Affordable Art Fair
2010.06 - Royal Academy Summer Show
2010.05 - London Printmakers @ OXO Gallery, SE1 LONDON
2010.03 - "OFF THE WALL" with East London Printmakers
2010.01 - London Art Fair
2009.10 - Amsterdam Affordable Art Fair
2009.10 - London Affordable Art Fair
2009.08 - "30 years/30 artists" Greenwich Printmakers at the Oxo Gallery, SE1
2009.06 - Paul McPherson Gallery "Ornithology" Solo Show
2009.06 -"PRINTED" Biscuit Factory (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
2009.06 - National Theatre's "Lasting Impressions. Greenwich Printmakers 30 years on."
2009.05 - Bristol Affordable Art Fair
2009.02 - 20/21 Art Fair
2009.02 - Originals '09. National Printmaking Exhibition, London
2008.11 - Edinburgh Art Fair
2008.10 - Amsterdam Affordable Art Fair
2008.10 - London Affordable Art Fair
2008.05 - Bristol Affordable Art Fair
2008.03 - Northern Art Show, Harrogate
2008.02 - Originals '08. National Printmaking Exhibition, London
2007.11 - Affordable Art Fair, Amsterdam
2007.11 - Edinburgh Art Fair
2007.10 - Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London
2007.09 - "Eye Play", Bankside Gallery, London
2007.06 - Landmark Art Fair, Teddington
2007.05 - Affordable Art Fair, Bristol
2007.04 - Chelsea Art Fair, Chelsea Town Hall, London
2007.04 - Glasgow Art Fair
2007.02 - Originals '07. National Printmaking Exhibition, London
2007.01 - Works on Paper, Royal Academy, London
2006.10 - Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London
2006.08 - "All Aboard the Skylark", Oxo Gallery, London
2006.06 - Dulwich Art Fair, London
2006.06 - Landmark Art Fair, Teddington
from 2006.05 - Skylark 1, Gabriel's Wharf, London permanent display
2006.05 - Affordable Art Fair, Bristol
2006.05 - Chelsea Art Fair, Chelsea Town Hall, London
2005.10 - Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London
2005.07 - Brockley Open Studios, London
2005.06 - "Challenge the Nail 2005 "@ SALON DES ARTS. www.salondesarts.org
2005.05 - Blackheath Gallery, "Early Summer Show", London
2005.05 - Affordable Art Fair, Bristol
2005.03 - Skylark II at Oxo Tower, London [ended 2007]
2005.02 - Originals '05. National Printmaking Exhibition, London
2004.10 - Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London
2004.06 - Dulwich Art Fair, London
2004.02 - Originals '04. THE UNIVERSITY OF WALES Purchase Prize
from 2003.11 - Greenwich Printmakers Gallery (Greenwich Market, London) permanent display
2003.05 - PRINTSPACE, London
2003.05 - "MADE@Morley", Morley College Gallery, London
work in collections of University of Wales, Aberystwyth; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Citibank
publications: Artist and Illustrator 03/2008 / residency at Ruskin School of Art, Cambridge on AA2A programme 2016
When did you first employ printmaking as part of your creativity and what drew you to the medium?
Making prints, in most simple terms, is a method of producing works of graphic art. Both “graphic arts” and “independent” have to make sense in the equation of one’s life ahead of setting sail for the future of a studio artist.
I made my first original print at twenty-eight. In the years preceding, I was trained in architecture and worked in advertising and publishing, and I loved and loathed aspects of both professions. As often happens, life adjusted context and aspirations. Motherhood and moving to a new country precipitated the change, so I became who I am now – an artist with a printing press. Initially, the decision to go independent was guided by a survival instinct. It was my way of claiming a place in the world at a time when the sense of self was under threat from sweeping social pressures.
A few things appealed to me from the get-go. I appreciated printmaking as a communicational art form – a print is often born with an audience in mind – and I love that aspect of addressing the work to viewers. Furthermore, printmaking plugs an artist into the vast and fascinating cultural heritage, this gave me a feeling of instant belonging. Additionally, there are creative gains and rituals, the flow of the process. Out of which a sense of devotion to the craft had sprung.
What are your favoured methods for creating your work in print and why?
The indirect process of making prints appeals to me greatly. Before the plates turn into impressions, there is the fascination of developing their form and function in one’s mind. There is a tug and pull between intellectual and unselfconscious. The complex processes of printmaking are a succession of actions and reactions – it is human, and thrilling.
Naturally, I delight in freehand drawing and how a line translates from a plate to a print. The other side of me is fascinated with what an eye perceives as tone: the representation of light and space.
Graphic arts are, by nature, reductive and assume functions of a language: with functions, rules, and perception mechanisms. But these mechanisms are open-ended. The rules are there yet not there – you can utilize existing ones or make up your own. There is also an option of breaking the rules entirely.
Artists (especially in graphics) tend to follow pathways afforded by the mediums we work in. But the creative quest is to find tangible, engaging, and original ways to share ideas. Art above all is an illusion materialized, with as many illusions as there are minds to read them.
And as I intuitively lean toward storytelling in my work, I find myself endlessly negotiating between the methods and materials, something I believe will never end.
What do you hope to convey in your work?
Intrigue and wonder. A seed of thought. To stir and to comfort. Bestow a connection. Art is the language that helps us “paint” emotions, and communicate something for which we have no language, yet. On either side of the emotional spectrum, there are no words/no logic, so my work is a perception mechanism that helps me deal with the potency and vastness of these imagined possibilities.
Who and what has inspired your creativity (artists, art movements, experience?
A search to find avenues of expressing perceivable yet nonverbal binds all visual artists together and makes them kindred spirits. Art, the way I see it, is not a consecutive line of eras and names. It is an abundant field: self-ruling, everlasting, and free to work on – pick your tools and have a go. As long as humanity is there, there will be some form of art, it is a state of pure being first. An artefact is simply a proof of that state and as such a proof of life.
The most inspiring art for me is nudging to think and feel, the one open to questioning and not devoid of playfulness. I am equally interested in Roman sculpture, medieval manuscripts, orthodox icons, renaissance drawing, Japanese woodblock, Colour Field, generative computer art, and many more ways humans explored, recorded and shared their experiences. It is impossible to feel lonely in art.