IN THE STUDIO
TOP RIGHT Brutal
Forms III, screen
print, 29.7x42cm
ABOVE Hayward
Gallery, screen
print, 50x70cm
moving things around,” adds Melissa
North. All four members clearly have
a good idea of who is the best person
to consult for certain problems, so a
strong collective aesthetic has built
up as a result. “I think now we play
that to our strengths,” says Melissa.
“You’ll be working on a print and you’ll
get this block and you...”
Caitlin Parks jumps in. “...You just
know the right thing is to give it to
someone else.”
“I think there are certain rules to
what an Underway Studio print looks
like,” agrees Aiden Barefoot.Collectively, they suggest those
qualities include grainy textures,
block colours and interesting overlaps.
As all four still make art separately,
does it get difficult to decide which
ideas they save for Underway?
“It’s just a band metaphor over and
over again,” says Aiden. “You can do
your own solo stuff, but as a band you
have that sound. When I come here
and we work on our stuff, it has its
own feel to it.”
Working collectively has put an
interesting spin on colour for Aiden.
“I tend to work very monochromatic orlike one or two tones, but then I look
at something like our Hackney Empire
print and think, ‘Well, these two work
well together’, and it might influence
me. There’s a conversational element
to it, it does go back and forth.”
That conversation first began in
2015, when Caitlin and Melissa set
up the original Underway Studio
shortly after graduating from the
University of Westminster. They found
a space under the Westway flyover
in Ladbroke Grove, west London.
“Underway is kind of a pun,” explains
Melissa ofthename.“So,it’slikeUnusually for a studio such as this,
every Underway print has been
honed by all four artists