2007 Bankside Gallery
Someone working at Bankside visited our 2006 show and asked if we had ever considered showing at Bankside. We hadn’t: Bankside seemed that austere headquarters of the RE and the RWS, and in any case beyond us financially. However I approached them, and three weeks after the 2006 show closed we’d booked one week at Bankside for £4,800, from 16 – 22 July 2007.
For our proposal to Bankside, we wrote: ‘Loop is a loose organisation of artist-printmakers who recently completed the Camberwell MA Printmaking course. Although we trained on a printmaking course we see ourselves as artists who use a variety of media, rather than exclusively as printmakers. Our exhibitions have featured 3-D work, drawing, watercolour and collage as well as a wide range of printmaking media from the oldest, woodblock, to the most recent developments in digital print.
‘For some of us, print has found its way off the page, and on to a variety of surfaces, appearing in 3D work and in commissioned public art,.
We feel that the opportunity to exhibit together encourages wide-ranging individual research and development. Many of us show work in smaller exhibitions throughout the year but the diversity of work in the group shows, and the communication this encourages, is valuable.
‘We exhibit without a group theme or rigid curatorial agenda. This has resulted in exhibitions showing innovative, exciting and varied art, and we wish to continue along this path.’
A Bankside show was a big challenge. We had just eight months to get the people together, and new work made, and the expectations of a show at Bankside were high. We printed 1,200 copies of an A5 catalogue, and sold seven pages of advertising to help cover the costs. Professor Paul Coldwell kindly wrote an introduction and Oona Grimes, who had helped many of us as a visiting teacher at Camberwell, agreed to be a Guest Artist.
A few months after it closed we were already busy looking for a gallery for a 2008 show.
