MAKING her MARK

Eve Campbell’s wallhangings capture the colours, shapes and patterns of nature on Scotland’s west coast

- Judy Diamond

Deep in a secluded corner of the Cowal peninsula, with lush woodland on one side and the blue waters of the Kyles of Bute on the other, Eve Campbell is hard at work. The artist, designer and maker is in her attic studio, cutting paper shapes, stencilling imagery and mixing up fresh batches of colour. She is making a printed ‘wallhanging’ to be exhibited as part of Northword, a traditional storytelling project that spans northern Scotland, Sweden, Finland, Russia and more. This piece, Queen of the Inch, is inspired by a Bronze Age burial site on Inchmarnock, a tiny isle visible from the window.

Artists often turn to printmaking to produce affordable examples of their work. It makes sense: the cost of a Picasso oil painting, say, is beyond the reach of almost everyone, but you could pick up one of his lithographs or screenprints for just a couple of thousand pounds. It might be from an edition of 500 and the great master’s hands probably didn’t touch it (a studio technician will have done the hard graft), but it still counts as a genuine Picasso.

This idea that prints are somehow less authentic or less worthy of being collected is being turned on its head here in Argyll. Campbell’s large-scale prints are so time-consuming and so complex to make that most are one-offs.