Edinburgh Printmakers' Community Celebrated in RSA’s Chaos & Control

Chaos & Control: Printmaking in Scotland Now is an exhibition curated by Ade Adesina and Flora La Thangue exploring the contribution of printmaking to the landscape of contemporary art in Scotland. This beautifully curated exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy presents a varied selection of some of the most talented printmakers working in Scotland today and gives credit to the various printmaking studios including Edinburgh Printmakers which nourish and support the scene.

Ade Adesina says in his introduction to the catalogue: “For me personally, the importance of these spaces cannot be overstated… These studios taught me that printmaking was not only about technique, but about community.” *

We are very pleased that this excellent exhibition includes many artists from the wider Edinburgh Printmakers community, including current and former Studio Members, tutors, collaborating artists, and exhibiting artists. We have highlighted some of them below.

Bronwen Sleigh, who regularly teaches the ‘Archiving Architecture’ etching course here at EP, is featured in the first room of the exhibition with her series Monar Variations, inspired by her exploration of Monar Hydroelectric Dam near her home in the Highlands. She says of her recent work, “My focus has shifted… towards the relationship between the man-made and the natural landscape, with a particular attention on hydroelectric dams. Located in remote settings, these imposing structures stand in stark contrast to their surroundings and have irreversibly altered the landscapes they inhabit.” Her varied edition plays with repeating patterns in different colour schemes and with different emphases. 

Scott Baxter’s incredible intricate print Amoretto is a five colour screenprint on over 1,000 individual iridescent PVC tiles, and really needs to be seen in three dimensions to properly appreciate the work**. Scott is a Studio Member here at EP who explores queer identity in his work, responding to historical and current, queer (in)visibility by subverting understandings of familiar social allegories to create altered contexts for queer realities and agency to exist. Scott’s work often depicts multiple temporalities of bodies in action, bodies in transition and the evanescent experiences of touch.

Three of Anupa Gardner’s beautifully vibrant woodcuts hang together in a group. These beautiful and detailed prints are the result of many layers of reduction woodcut printing. Anupa is a Studio Member and a tutor at EP, and was formerly a Studio Technician. Born in India, she has been based in Scotland for many years. Her work is driven by an engagement with materiality, tactility, and the relationships that emerge through making, and evolves through a continual dialogue with ink, paper and image.

Ade Adesina is an artist based in Aberdeen who had a solo exhibition at EP in 2024. His practice offers a visual exploration of ecology and the evolving relationship between humanity and the natural world. His linoprints are large and exquisitely detailed, rewarding close inspection. 

Aoife Cawley is a Studio Member at EP working with screenprint. Her prints are colourful and joyous, drawing inspiration from historical artefacts and decorative arts. She creates compositions that hold multiple meanings, accompanying the work with extensive research, reading, and connecting stories. 

Victoria Crowe is an established artist who has collaborated with EP on several EP Editions, working with our Head of Editions, Alastair Clark, to produce series of limited edition prints, including Midnight Dawn, Birsay which is featured in the exhibition. Victoria says about the collaboration process, “I found the whole process of collaboration to be hugely rewarding. Very different to solo studio work, this joint involvement of discovering different ways of moving towards a shared goal is such a creative bonus… Initially I found the subtle technical possibilities of litho a total mystery! But I’m working with Alastair Clark and gradually learning to exploit the use of transparent ink washes which produce atmospheric and flowing images.”

Leena Nammari’s poignantly beautiful print triptych, “echoes of a home once loved"- Sheikh Jarrah, is also included in the exhibition. Sheikh Jarrah is a neighbourhood of Jerusalem that is part of the occupied Palestinian territories. Leena is a Palestinian artist printmaker based in Scotland, and is a Studio Member of EP, a tutor on the education programme,, and exhibited her work in the EP galleries in 2022. Leena is a master printmaker in all aspects of printmaking, and though her ideas predominantly are analysed and broken down through printmaking processes, she has also worked in film, photography, bronze and ceramics.

Three of Robert Powell’s detailed and fantastical etchings hang together. Robert is an Edinburgh-based visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice focuses on printmaking, but extends to sculpture, video, and text. Robert is a longstanding Studio Member of Edinburgh Printmakers, and is the etching tutor and Intaglio Technician. He recently had a solo exhibition at EP in the summer of 2025. In his career thus far he has been the recipient of several awards including the 2008 John Watson Award, the 2011 Benno Schotz Award from the RSA and the 2013 SSA Engramme Printmaking Exchange prize. 

Morven Ferguson's beautiful photo-etching and monotype print, The Bay of Fires, is featured in the exhibition. Morven has been a Studio Member of Edinburgh Printmakers since 2022 and also teaches Family Print Club. Her work evokes contrasts in light and dark, suggesting the ever-changing atmosphere of the landscape. She explores the interplay between digital and traditional printmaking techniques within her work, and enjoys working between both contemporary and traditional printmaking approaches, embracing elements of advanced technology as well as the physical process of printmaking.

Gill Tyson’s ambitious, enormous Mokulito print, The Sleeping Mountain was printed at Edinburgh Printmakers with technical help from Namhara Byron-Low, Studio Technician. Measuring 87cm x 70cm, this was quite a challenging one to print! She is a longstanding Studio Member of EP, and was Chair of the Board from 1982-1986. She has since moved to Morvern, a remote peninsula on the west coast of Scotland, but returns to EP to print larger works such as this.

We are very pleased to see the talents of our community - and the printmaking community throughout Scotland - recognised and championed in this fantastic exhibition.

Chaos & Control: Printmaking in Scotland Today runs until 26 July 2026 at the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) and is free to enter.

Works from most of these artists are available to view and purchase in-person at Edinburgh Printmakers and online. 

*All quotes are taken from the exhibition catalogue: Chaos & Control: Printmaking in Scotland Now, produced by the Royal Scottish Academy in 2026.

**See a video here.

Photos credit: Eleanor Buffam