Melissa Birch
About
I first discovered printmaking during my degree at the Ruskin School of Fine Art in Oxford. It was a thrill to use the etching presses and see the artworks magically revealed as they peeled away from the plate. When I later learnt a technique for producing lino prints in my own studio I became hooked for good.
Living in the South Downs fuels my obsession with nature, and particularly floral structures. The morning sun falling on a roadside thistle can literally stop me in my tracks. I regularly sketch in the flowerbeds of my own garden, as well as in the local countryside. The challenge I set myself is to capture the essence of a particular plant with just line and shape. Simplicity of form is a strong feature of my work, and a lot of planning and refinement goes into the process.
I live and work in a small village in West Sussex with a young family and a badly behaved black and white cat.