About Artlab ::::::

Artlab Contemporary Print Studio (ACPS) is a hub for incubating ideas and methods, developing innovative thinking about printmaking as a fine art discipline.

This practice based research unit is led by two artists and research staff Tracy Hill and Magda Stawarska. During the past 10 years they have developed and provided a specialised printmaking studio accessible to national and regional artists, allowing them to expand their printmaking practice and encourage collaborative dialogue. Tracy Hill and Magda Stawarska have shown their artwork internationally in Printmaking Exhibitions in China, USA, Australia, Korea, Turkey, Poland and The Netherlands and presenting their projects at international conferences in Australia, Germany, Canada, Spain, Estonia, Poland and Ireland, have expanded internationally the reputation of ACPS.

ACPS links tradition and innovation, challenging historical perceptions of printmaking and repositioning it as a key element within contemporary practice. A new awareness of the field of contemporary printmaking during the past decade has provided the opportunity for artists to expand their artistic practice by working with this specialist printmaking studio to produce professional, high quality printed works.

Our unique and innovative, collaborative approach to printmaking informed by our individual research practice has enable international prize-winning artists such as Lubaina Himid (Turner Prize Winner 2017, Tate Modern Solo 2021), and Helen Cammock (Max Mara Prize Winner 2018, Turner Prize Winner 2019) to realise their artistic vision. Artwork made by Helen Cammock and the team at ACPS was exhibited at the Turner Prize exhibition in 2019. During the past decade Lubaina Himid has made several print editions at ACPS and in 2021 with Magda Stawarska, Lubaina produced Old Boat New Weather, an edition of 30 prints for the Robson Orr TenTen Award with the Government Art Collection. https://artcollection.culture.gov.uk  In 2022 Magda Stawarska has been working with Lubaina Himid on research into the longstanding relationship between painting and the printed image, examining the mark making of Hogarth’s engravings in relation to the fluid painted marks of Himid. The project continues and attempts to expand the conversation between the multiple and the unique. The project was commissioned and funded by Cristea Roberts Gallery and was exhibited as Alla Prima/Cross Hatch in their London Gallery in the spring of 2023.

We have also worked on several projects with internationally significant artists; Ingrid Pollard (Baltic Artists Award 2019, Freelands Award 2020, Turner Prize Nominee 2022), Lisa Milroy (Professor of Painting Slade School of Art) Jenny Steele, Shezad Dawood, Heather Ross and Rebecca Chesney. 

We are open to discuss and develop project proposals with other practitioners and multidisciplinary artists whose practice encounters or interrogates innovative printmaking.  

Housed within the University of Central Lancashire’s Victoria Building our specialist printmaking facilities sit at the centre of the campus amongst multi-disciplinary studio, research centres, exhibition spaces and extensive creative workshops. The studios combine a relaxed creative space and professional expertise for artists of all abilities to develop projects where printmaking is an essential element within expanded practice.

The inspirational and welcoming atmosphere promotes experimentation and innovation as well as a particularly high standard of production in all areas of printmaking including intaglio, relief, lithography and silkscreen. The very well-equipped Intaglio studios offer opportunities for etching aluminium, zinc and copper using metal salt etching etch techniques as well as intaglio type and photogravure. 

Our silkscreen studios are equipped to produce hand cut stencils, hand drawn autographic images and digitally produced photographic positives for screens.

Dedicated relief presses enable the production of traditional lino, wood and collagraph plates while our lithography studios are equipped for offset plate and direct stone lithography.