The fifth annual selling exhibition showing work by members of Edinburgh Printmakers opens on Friday.
There is work from 120+ artists showing the breadth of contemporary printmaking with screen printing, etching, lithography, textile and mixed media all included.
The theme of the exhibition is Our Shared World. It is a commentary on the way the world and the environments we live in are changing. This has led not only to a depiction of changes in landscape and our physical world but also explores how people live together. The misspoken word and the experience of migration are also used as stories to tell in the medium of contemporary printmaking.
Members of Edinburgh Printmakers use the extensive facilities at Castle Mills to produce their own work. This is one of Europe’s largest printmaking workshops, where the printmaking studio staff are on hand to assist.
All artwork can be purchased through the Own Art scheme.
Highlights from the exhibition – which includes 125 artworks – include Anupa Gardner’s“Summerbright”, which draws inspiration from a quiet pond in a community garden that has been nurtured by many hands. This six layered reduction woodcut, printed on Somerset Velvet Newsprint Grey, offers a moment of stillness in a busy city where green spaces and places of rest feel rare.
Taking inspiration from the fossil of a sea urchin, Joanne Pemberton‘s process uses the magic ball fold (designed by Raman Dhillon) to explore traditional printing and folding techniques, reimagining the forms and structures of the creature’s metamorphosis within life and death. The 3D pieces are made using Stone Lithography, printed on newsprint, and painted on the inside.
Rory Hamilton’s “You’re looking well (at the GPs)” considers “the things people say” while someone comes to terms with a diagnosis of a chronic condition. Based on the artist’s lived experience, the work pairs phrases and comments with photos and drawings of how this can make that person feel. In Rory’s own words – “Often I’m laughing, sometimes with you, sometimes at you.”
In “Kevin, New York, migrant”, a seven-layer stone lithograph by Kevin Maringer, the artist explores the expansions of our horizons through migration, in the lens of lived experience. The work considers how migrant experiences are perceived, and how personal identities often shift and are negotiated in shared spaces, in adopted homes, and upon return. Alastair Kinroy’s “Identity Concerns Us” is a large colour woodcut for our times. Considering ideas of collective action and individualism in the 21st Century, the artist seeks to question how discourses around identity and nationhood shape the world we live in.
And in “Is The Sky Free In Kensington?” Sue Shields observes how people navigate space in the busy landscape of London. Recording their experience of watching people – in a monotype with acrylic on Hahnemuhle paper – Sue turns towards the evening sky, connecting a shared experience of people from all walks of life who gaze up at a sunset.
Janet Archer, Chief Executive, Edinburgh Printmakers said: “Edinburgh Printmakers Annual Members’ Exhibition is an opportunity for visitors to the Galleries to get a glimpse of the scale and variety of work being created in our studio. A shared printmaking studio is a lively place where artists exchange ideas and knowledge about different print processes through a mutually supportive and encouraging community keen to push the boundaries of what printmaking can do through alchemy and experimentation. We’re grateful for world leading facilities which have seen a growing membership based not just in the city but throughout Scotland and the UK. In addition, international artists keen to work with our exceptionally skilled studio team are increasingly seeing Edinburgh Printmakers as a destination.
Our Shared World is a reflection on the world we live in individually and collectively, and a response to the changing local and global environment from a community committed to exploring how printmaking and the arts can promote understanding of how to be human in today’s world.
We’re thrilled with the overwhelming response to our exhibition callout and to be able to showcase more artists than ever before. Our selection panel have been highly impressed by the quality of work on offer and as a selling exhibition we look forward to giving festive shoppers an opportunity to buy unique gifts while supporting Scotland’s printmaking community.”
- Our Shared World: Castle Mills Members Show 5
- 28 November – 15 March 2026
- Gallery 1 & 2 Edinburgh Printmakers
- Castle Mills 1 Dundee Street, Edinburgh, EH3 9FP
- Wednesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm
- www.edinburghprintmakers.co.uk
With the Own Art scheme, buyers can spread the cost over 10 months at 0% interest. Loans of between £100 and £2,500 are available towards the purchase of an original piece of art by a living artist.
