Meet the SPS Member Technicians: Charlotte Biszewski, Sam Emm & Monika Rycerz
As part of the studio restructure, SPS has recently introduced 2 more Member Technician positions. Member Technicians work for 3 hours a week, assisting the Studio Technical Manager with day to day tasks. Their responsibilities are: to promote Health and Safety, to aid in the supervision and assistance of members & to help maintain the facilities in a clean condition and good working order.
Member Technicians have the opportunity to learn technical, organisational and interpersonal skills. The post is for a 12-month contract, so others will have the opportunity to apply for the position in the future.
Our current Member Technicians are:
Charlotte Biszewski has recently graduated from the Multi-Disciplinary Print MA at UWE. She works on Thursday evenings and is currently working on the Vandercook to improve the letterpress area.
In Charlotte’s practice, she works in creating and exploring fantasy worlds. She builds installations of childish imaginations for her own adult audience. Her 3D installations all play with movement and interaction, being straight forward, accessible and enjoyable. Her prints have similar intentions, being straightforward, colourful and humorous. She specialises in woodcut, typesetting and etching. Her whole practice is process driven, not only using the process of creating prints, but every project revolves first about the physical fabrication of creating imaginary worlds, characters and puppets, before moving using these to influence her prints and books.
Click on this link to read about Charlotte’s current project.
Sam Emm is a relief printmaker, working on Wednesday evenings. He is currently learning about care and maintenance of the relief and etching presses in the studio.
In his Artwork, Sam is dedicated to pattern and repetition, with an emphasis on colour. Working primarily in lino and etching, his practice lies between Op Art and Abstraction by trying to achieve an intense overall effect through tiling patterns to form a larger more complex, tessellated version. His work utilizes a carefully selected sequence of colours to give a sense of balance to the work, aiming to challenge the viewer’s perception of pattern and colour through manipulation of line and form. His intuitive selection of contrasting and complimentary colours is used to enhance the feeling of intensity in a piece. His practice develops a visual, rather than conceptual communication; an optical illusion of movement is apparent through his work. His use of pattern and colour is unique and individual whilst retaining a contemporary quality signalled through use of modern iconography.
Monika Rycerz is also a recent graduate of the Multi-Disciplinary Print MA at UWE. Monika is currently working on Thursday mornings assisting Francisco. She looks after the screenprinting area.
Monika makes prints, site-specific wallpapers and room installations, creating multi-faceted atmospheres that combine a dark, sombre palette with an uplifting note of vivid fluorescent colour. Her work is predominantly abstract. By adding imaginative figures and motifs it becomes a narrative which attempts to reveal what lies beneath the surface. She combines collage, photography and print, layering different shapes, images and textures. Monika enjoys working with the process. As a passionate printmaker, she eagerly embraces unexpected visual anomalies, incorporating them into the final pieces. This ‘controlled chaos’ leads to an ambiguity that is not easily understood or explained.
