Unfolding Landscape – Horizontal
In recent years, Gardiner has predominantly created intaglio monoprints, a painterly form of printmaking in which each impression is unique as the etched plate is worked individually, adding colour or wiping the ink differently each time a print is pulled. Even in an edition of etchings, each individual print will be subtly different. As with the format of his paintings, Gardiner’s long horizontal monoprints immediately suggest landscape panoramas, which were popular forms of entertainment in the nineteenth century.
But the notion of a single view is something that he would seek to dispel. Instead, he considers these prints to be like a musical score, composed of themes and variations, a series of fragmentary views pieced together. One section might be a view of the Dorset landscape seen on a coastal walk, another a cross-section of a fossil found in that location, whilst another element might be a pattern seen on the ground. Like a page of musical notation, the passing of time is implicit within the structure.
Simon Martin
