Susan Aldworth Print Launch: Belongings and Crossing series

Aldworth’s new print Belonging is a direct and emotional response to her installation Belongings. The installation of 35 embroidered antique clothes re-imagines the contents of her Italian grandmother’s suitcase when she migrated to the UK in 1924. It is about unpacking the notions of belonging (what it means to belong as a refugee or a migrant) and belongings (the items you choose to pack in your suitcase when you leave your home to move to another country).

The idea for Belonging was to make a new print which spoke about migration to evoke empathy and understanding of this very human condition which is part of so many family histories. It is a mixed media print taken directly from the imprint of an antique baby gown, one of the items Aldworth imagined was in the suitcase her grandmother carried when she travelled with her baby from Italy to the UK. The christening robe is vintage with beautiful hand-worked details.

Aldworth turned it into a printing plate using shellac. The dress is relief printed on top of two plate lithographic layers – the bottom layer shows historic family photos, and the second layer is handwritten text hidden in the folds of the fabric, dusted with gold powder. There is a tiny heart dusted in gold dust in the bodice of the dress, to suggest the physical and emotional life of a migrant, particularly a small child like many of those seeking sanctuary today.

“The words and images discreetly signpost migration from amongst the creases– if you look closely, you can read hand-written words like SANCTUARY, DIASPORA, HOME, ASYLUM, REFUGE, EXILE and BELONGING and see the faces of my historic family peeping through. The print tells one person’s story but references many migrant narratives over the last 100 years. It is a personal and political artistic response to current anti-immigration narratives.” 

The lithograph Crossings and associated prints Passing Through and Transition (arch) were alsomade at EP.  Susan has been exploring the complex processes of grief since her mother died during the pandemic in 2020.

In Susan’s exhibition Modern Alchemy, 2 monoprints, In a Puff of Smoke 4 & 7 were her first print experiments into grief.  Made using the painterly and photographic qualities of both stone and plate lithography, the Crossings series explores the liminal state between ‘awake’ and ‘asleep’, ‘consciousness’ and ‘unconsciousness’ and ‘alive’ and ‘dead’. Working experimentally and combining both stone and plate lithography, Crossings is a visual equivalence of these transitions through the process of making. The bottom half of the print is a drawn stone lithograph; the energy of the mark-making suggests the transition from darkness to light. 

“Lithography is a very generous medium allowing for both rich mark-making and photographic possibilities. I like to work at great speed, and for my work to look as if it has just landed on the paper. Under the guidance of the brilliant Alastair Clark, I was able to discuss and explore how I wanted this print to develop. The drawing at the bottom of the print is made by working energetically on a stone, and the cloud of smoke is transferred from an ink drawing into a plate. The combination is very dynamic and had expanded the possibilities of the way I can make prints.”