Print Exchange 2023: Robert Sparham

Bob lives in a village called Bottesford which is about 14 miles from Nottingham in the East Midlands.

He spent three years at Southend on Sea art school studying Graphic Design and did his degree at Anglia Ruskin Uni in Cambridge studying Fine Art and European History and his master’s at Middlesex studying Art and Design History. As a 17-year-old art student, he visited an exhibition of Chinese art at the RA and fell totally passionately in love with an ink painting on silk, of trees in a wooded valley. Later discovered Japanese woodblock prints of landscapes and extended his love.

Previously a Graphic Designer for a printer in Cambridge and when they computerised their systems, Bob bought an old flatbed proofing press from them and began to use it to try and print lino-cuts trying to recapture the effects of that Chinese painting of long ago and Japanese prints. His prints were quite successful and he even got to exhibit some of them in China in Xi’an where the terracotta army was found. Unfortunately, due to ill health, he now finds it difficult to pull the heavy roller on the press.

The print exchange was the first time Bob has gone back to use his beloved press for a short edition.

“Thank you for motivating me to get back to it, I am planning to produce a longer edition for a Ukrainian print exchange next month.”