For years Tushka (Chrissy Mouncey) has photographed moments in the outdoors which make her feel something. Through reading books by Robert Macfarlane, Roger Deakin and other writers focused on the outdoors and then catching a programme on radio 4 about Awe she has realised she has always been photographing little moments of awe; moments that make her feel uplifted and glad to be alive as the beginnings of an intention to hold onto these feelings and be able to revisit them and share the sense of positivity it gives her.
Helen De Cruz who is an author of a book researching awe and wonderment ‘we live in a steady drumbeat of bad news… Awe helps you value things for what they are.’
Experiencing awe, even little moments of awe has a physical effect on us, it stimulates the release of oxytocin and activates the vagus nerve. Emotionally or mentally it gives us a sense of feeling smaller but more connected, a focus outwards rather than on our internal selves and can feel happier and less stressed even weeks after experiencing awe. Tushka’s work is an exploration of conveying this sense of little moments of awe, to hold onto it and keep it but also to share it and pass it on.
Her work often uses her photography as references to create images of experiences of awe, people surfing, dipping, being emerged in the outdoors, with a focus on light and water and the experience itself. More recently she has begun to create regular sketches, documenting the moments and feelings they stimulate, working from the photographs that give her the greatest emotional reaction when she revisits them and focusing on drawing out the elements that make her feel something, enhancing these elements.
The sketches are then sifted through and the ones that catch her attention the most when revisited become the basis to create larger screen prints that are layers of colour, light and movement. Through mono-printing and gradient printing sketchy, inky and painterly layers she builds up the artworks drawing out the colour, light, wind, shadow, clouds, seas and so on so, as to inspire a sense of awe, creating hopefully artworks that create a positive feeling, that relax and uplift.
Although her work is based largely on seascapes and landscapes, she is less concerned with the representation of location as with using the recognisable and familiar as an easy access point to the feelings the prints create. It’s the subconscious reactions to them that she is interested in, that they inspire others to look for and consciously notice this feeling of wonderment in their every days too.
The print process
Tushka works in a variety of methods to produce her prints. Many are hand screen printed in her own studio after exposing the screens at Double Elephant print studio or Spike Print Studio.
For her newer work, she experiments with mark making on transparent film, building up layers of print over a base layer print from a quick sketch. She then monoprints to give freedom of colour and sense of movement to the prints.
For other prints she meticulously draws each colour layer onto drafting film for many of her prints which she combines with print techniques such as mono printing and repeatedly using gradients in her screen prints. Other work, including the WaveProject stencil series are printed with hand cut paper stencils.
Her giclée prints, such as the Rorschach series, are created by hand drawn layers of tracing paper which are scanned in and overlaid to give the final prints.
Exhibitions
Naked, Bideford - Ongoing solo show of current work
London House Studio Gallery, Bideford - Ongoing exhibition of selected prints
Hand:Plant, Ilfracombe - Ongoing exhibition of selected prints
Wild Thyme, Braunton - Ongoing exhibition of selected prints
Burton Gallery - Annual Open Exhibition, Group show Spring 2023
The Print Open - Studio Kind, Group show Summer 2023
Independent shows, The Waiting Room gallery, May 2023 & 2023
Backgroud
After studying Fine Art and English (Plymouth University Faculty of Arts) and Graphic Design (London College of Communication), she has worked as a printmaker for six years in her studio alongside printing at Double Elephant print studio (Exeter) and Spike print studio (Bristol).If you would like to get in touch regarding any projects or collaborations, or if you have any questions please email me using the contact form.