Maria Dawson

Having gone to Art College and worked as a Graphic Designer for many years I have always had a keen interest in all forms of arts and crafts and printmaking in particular. I recent years, I have been a carer for my daughter Amy who is also an artist ; Together we combine our talents working primarily with nature from our farm for inspiration. We have both attended various classes in printmaking at various art colleges and galleries including Butler Gallery, kilkenny and The Hugh Lane Galllery. We work from a small converted shed on the family farm and purchased a hawthorn etching bed from ebay last year . Using this etching bed and our skills that we have both picked up attending various courses we hope to develop our printmaking into a viable business selling our work and running printmaking courses.

I developed a keen interest in printmaking over the past two years whilst attending part-time CEAD courses at NCAD and Gorey School of Art. Coming from a graphic design background and having print as one of the modules studied at college the 2D element always appealed to me; My work is mostly based around nature and botanical art as this is an area of keen interest for Amy. We try to use as many sustainable materials as possible including paper, packaging and inks.
The work varies from monoprinting to linoprinting, dry point etching on acetates and collographs. From time to time I like to do some screenprinting when i can get access to the workhouse studio in callan where we join other artists for ‘Makers Day’.