Artists & Illustrators - UK (2020-04)

IN THE STUDIO

Underway Studio

STEVE PILL visited the South London printmaking collective to find out how four

individual artists have pooled their talents to create a singular creative vision

T

he four printmakers that

currently make up London’s

Underway Studio are sat

around a table, cups of tea in hand,

trying to explain how they collectively

make prints. Unusually for a studio

such as this, every screen print that

goes out under the Underway banner

has been honed by all four artists.

Working in this way sounds like a

utopian dream, yet as anyone who

has ever shared so much as a flat will

tell you, it is a set-up that does not

always produce harmonious results.

The mood around the table is very

cheerful today, however. Although

screen printing is a very tangible

process, almost every Underway

design will begin as a digital image.

“We might start by quickly cutting a

few bits but that will be an immediate

brainstorm and then it’s put on the

computer,” explains Anna Schmidt.

“With Photoshop, you can even mimic

the multiplying effect when you

screenprint overlapping colours.”

“One person will lead an initial

composition idea and put some stuff

on the page and then it gets passed

around, with all of us having a go at