ROSEMARY VANNS

Rosemary Vanns is a full time artist who lives and works in the beautiful Peak District in Derbyshire.  After training and working as a Staff Nurse for several years, until in 1984, Rosemary began an Honours Degree course in Printed Textiles and Fashion at Winchester School of Art.  After gaining her degree she went on to the Royal College of Art where she studied for an M.A. in Printmaking.  Rosemary later worked for 10 years as a freelance designer for the international wallpaper, furnishings and bedding market before returning to work as a Staff Nurse until 2007, after which her situation allowed her to work full time at her art.

Rosemary has won and been short-listed for several art prizes.  Her work is exhibited in Lancaster, Derbyshire, Cheshire and Northumberland as well as in Cornwall.  She says of her work:

'The path to my present happy state of being able to work full time at my art has been somewhat convoluted and haphazard.  Although the correlation between textile design and fine art is easy to make, the link between art and nursing is, on the surface, less obvious.  In many ways there is nothing that explains why I have oscillated between the two disciplines and yet on deeper reflection, both require similar skills; observation, problem solving, attention to details and empathy, all demanding both intellectual and emotional input.

The problem of the fine art having been put on hold for long periods is that I am now overwhelmed by ideas, techniques to explore and subjects to investigate.

I primarily hold onto printmaking as my main method of expression, but am finding increasingly my love of painting to be important.  The influence of painting when considering a print manifests itself by ink being brushed onto lino rather than the more traditional method of using a roller and areas of lino are sometimes given texture by using gesso, sandpaper or scratching with files.  The resulting images are softer, or more impressionistic than the hard edged, graphic effect more commonly associated with linoprinting.  This spills over into the realms of monoprinting and indeed some of my editions consist of slight variants because of this method.

Screenprints are produced by drawing directly onto the screen to produce a painterly and spontaneous line.

Landscape never fails to inspire; whether it is the now familiar Peak District and the beauty of my drive to the studio from home every morning over Tideswells Moor in the White Peak, or my recent re-discovered love of Cornwall.  Still life allows the familiar to be translated and transformed.

I continue to learn and develop.  Each drawing, print or painting even when mounted, framed and exhibited is really just part of this process.  To paraphrase the artist Roger Hilton, it is more important to learn something than to attempt to produce a successful work of art...'that is of no interest'