JENNIE ING: PAST & PRESENT
Nov 10 - Dec 10 2022
9am - 4pm Monday to Saturday
Art purchase inquiries: info@justgoodframes.com
Introduction by
Maev Kennedy
Jennie Ing keeps a sharp eye on London
The schoolgirl Jennie Ing spent hours thinking about the shapes of buildings, the spaces they held and the patterns they formed, and wondering if she wanted to be an architect when she grew up. She concluded reluctantly there were probably too many hard sums involved. Instead, Jennie did a secretarial course and became a restless and unfulfilled office worker - until a water-cooler moment when a colleague suggested she should probably sign up for an art course, and at the age of 40 the whole course of her life changed.
Jennie worried about feeling freakishly ancient as a mature student, but instead found a warm welcome from staff and fellow students: through a foundation course at Richmond College, a Fine Art BA at Croydon, and a Master’s at Wimbledon, she found her vocation and her medium: linocut prints of London scenes, in which that child’s fascination at how spaces work leaps off the page.
Her elegant line and striking use of colour are unmistakable, and her takes on scenes close to her home in Hampton Hill, including Bushy Park and Richmond Bridge, or of London landmarks such as St Paul’s or Borough Market, are now coveted by collectors.
Ing had chosen an unforgiving medium. Although the materials are relatively inexpensive, and the scale small enough to work from home on her beautiful 19th century Albion printing press - bought from the family of another artist in Wimbledon - creating the prints requires a sharp eye and clear decisions about the essential bone structure of buildings and landscapes. She works through reduction lino cutting, in which each colour is printed from a separate layer, which is then cut away to create the next printing surface.
As each layer is destroyed in the process, it demands that the artist knows from the start exactly what the finished print will look like. The whole edition has to be printed simultaneously, and mistakes cannot be corrected - although in one recent print she realised that she had cut away one tiny detail of a building, and had to carve a fingernail-sized separate block to insert and print it: no observer could have known it was missing, but she would always have seen the gap.
Ing is a soft-spoken woman, modest about her talent, but it is a source of grief that such prints are sometimes dismissed as mere mass-produced illustrations. She was taking a turn on the desk at the Southbank Printmakers gallery, where she has often exhibited, when she witnessed a man pick up one of her pictures and dismiss it contemptuously as “just a print”. Somehow she held her tongue, instead of pointing out that even the small pieces can easily take a fortnight’s work.
In one of her largest and most elaborate, Passing Storm, a view from Waterloo Bridge just upstream from the gallery, countless hours went into the clouds scudding across the sky and the fish scale ripples of the turbulent river. Like all her best pieces, it is instantly recognisable as both the scene itself and a Jennie Ing print - and, oh anonymous man in the gallery, as a cherishable work of art.
Maev Kennedy, an Irish writer and resident of TW1, is the former arts and heritage correspondent for The Guardian, where she also wrote on archaeology and edited the diary column. She continues to write regularly for The Art Newspaper. Maev is the author of the Hamlyn History of Archaeology, joint author of The Bones of A King with the Richard III team of the University of Leicester, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
JENNIE ING: ARTIST STATEMENT
My art is inspired by my interest in architecture. I love the shapes, sounds, colours and smells in the built up area. The city is full of secrets to be discovered, round every corner there is something new.
I came late to higher education. After a foundation course at Richmond College, a magical year, I did a BA in Fine Art, Printmaking and Book Arts at Croydon College. The built environment crept in at any opportunity. My final piece consisted of large canvases in blue and orange, inspired by high-rise post-war mass housing.
I continued printmaking by taking a Masters at Wimbledon School of Art. I then bought a Victorian Albion press and set up my own studio. Architecture and urban themes continued, with a focus on much-loved landmarks, and recurring blue and orange colour combinations. I also look at rural themes, especially to the south west of London.
I work by the reduction linocut method, successively cutting away the block, and printing over the previously worked colour until the finished print is achieved. It’s risky, there is no going back. The whole edition must be completed at the same time. I admire many printmakers but my big loves are Edward Bawden and Robert Tavener. I look to their work regularly for inspiration.
St Paul’s Cathedral
A big love, my all-time favourite London landmark, with so much of the rest coming an equal second. To me St Paul’s says London like no other building does. It is reassuring, dependable and timeless. I love coming across it by surprise, or seeing it across the river, or even from as far away as Richmond Park. How dare anyone spoil that protected view.
The Barbican, The British Museum,
Passing Storm – the City
An ever-changing architectural scene meets you in the City of London. There is always building work going on, and the view is ever changing. I tried to capture this in Passing Storm, with the skyline view of the City, the juxtaposition of the old and new, the stark contrasts. I love brutalist architecture. The Barbican is a real favourite, seeing glimpses of it from different parts of London, nudging into the view, a sense of awe when actually there and surrounded by the big concrete building blocks.
Richmond Hill, Park and Odeon
I have a long affinity with Richmond - many a day or evening out here, shopping, eating, theatre or cinema. My in-laws lived in Roehampton, and we’d drive or cycle through Richmond Park to visit, never tiring of the London view coming into sight. A short distance away is the view in the other direction from Richmond Hill. It always pleases me that Turner enjoyed this, and you can see it pretty much as it was then from there.
The boldness and beauty of Jennie's work demands to be seen in the flesh. As is the case here with the beautiful new linocut of the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park in the spring, the richness of Jennie's colours is not always rendered as it should be on a screen.
Our exhibition presents forty of her linocuts, Jennie's largest exhibition to date. She uses oil based inks, and prints on high quality 100% cotton rag Fabriano paper. All the prints in this exhibition are carefully presented in a deep Teichert mount board, and each frame is glazed with TruVue UV70 anti-reflective glass. We have used both white and black mouldings, each as we feel appropriate, to frame each work. Bespoke frames are also available on request.