Discover one of London's hidden art gems! The Southbank Printmakers is a co-operative of forty artists selling quality limited edition original prints at affordable prices through our gallery in central London and online. Read our newsletter to discover what's in the gallery this month and which of our printmakers is featured as an Artist in Focus.
August at Southbank Printmakers
Published about 1 month ago • 3 min read
August 2026
Southbank Printmakers
Original fine art print gallery
Our first evening workshop at the gallery was a great success. Under the expert eye of Maureen Nathan, each person took away one drypoint print and plate, with some even managing two prints in just a couple of hours!
We are planning a programme of printmaking workshops for the London Open House Festival, 12th-20th September, so keep an eye on Instagram or the September newsletter for more details.
This month we are launching a new blog on the Southbank Printmakers website. The first feature is an interview with Alexandra Motiu, one of our August Artists in Focus. Alex's relief prints make such an interesting contrast to the monotypes of our other Artist in Focus this month, Roy Tonkin.
If there any things you'd like us to feature or questions you'd like answered in the blog or newsletter just drop us an email at info@southbankprintmakers.com
Themed events
This Green and Pleasant Land runs fromMonday 20th July – Sunday 23rd August. With a nod to William Blake’s poem Jerusalem, this showcase of prints by nine of our members celebrates the green and pleasant land that is traditional England, with its customs and countryside, and serves as a reminder of the wetter, milder summers of other years!
When you visit Southbank Printmakers you will see one of our members picked out as the Artist in Focus, with extra wall and browser space given to their work.
ALEXANDRA MOTIU: 3rd-16th August
Alexandra Motiu is a printmaker and illustrator with a fine art background. She works with original printmaking techniques – mainly relief, linocut and wood engraving and has experience in etching, metal engraving and monotype. Her work has surreal qualities and humour, with an Old Masters' feel. She aims to make hauntingly beautiful work that will stay with the viewer for a long time. Enjoying busy compositions with complex stories which she builds up like a collage, her works are often rooted in myth and folklore.
Alexandra creates detailed, decorative, and surreal prints that are entirely guided by the processes she works with, where mistakes are appreciated and oddities shine. She draws inspiration from people, specifically portraiture and it is from this sister art form that the stories encapsulated in her prints often develop.
All Roy’s prints are made using an etching press, but they don’t form part of an edition; every picture is a one-off, unique piece of work like a painting. He uses an etching press and the monotype process because he loves the effects achievable just with ink and paper under pressure. Roy makes studies for his prints outside and sketches with watercolours or charcoal as much as possible, reinterpreting what he has seen as necessary.
For the printmaking itself, Roy draws the image on to an aluminium plate and starts to ink up some of the drawing. He then blends, wipes away, adding more ink and plays with rolling over colours as well as spraying thinner ink over the top. Most prints go through the press twice but with the more complex images, a print might go through the press three or four times, each time reinking some areas of the plate or adding different colours for different areas.
His current work was inspired by his studio by the River Thames, starting with City views, but then naturally moving on to riverscapes and onwards to the sea. Roy spends a lot of time in Devon and Cornwall, where his surname and indeed his middle name, Tremayne, are originally from.
St Paul's and the Millennium Bridge, 33x34cm, monotype
What is Relief printmaking? A general term for printmaking techniques in which the printing surface is cut away so that the image appears raised on the surface. Relief print methods include woodcut (images below), linocut and letterpress. The raised areas of the printing surface are inked and printed, while the areas that have been cut away do not pick up the ink.
Discover one of London's hidden art gems! The Southbank Printmakers is a co-operative of forty artists selling quality limited edition original prints at affordable prices through our gallery in central London and online. Read our newsletter to discover what's in the gallery this month and which of our printmakers is featured as an Artist in Focus.
