The Stages of Birdhood - available in-gallery or to order
By Cally Trench
Linocut prints
Original artworks - variable editon of 20 for each print
Framed or available unframed in conservation-grade mounts and sleeves
Sizes: window size in the mount is H:27 x W:21 cm
The external mount size is H:46 x W:39 cm, with the frame adding about 4cm to each dimension
Available individually or as a set of two or more
Framed - £170 each
Unframed £130 each
This perfect, vintage-style series of linocut prints - recording a bird's life cycle stages - is influenced by the 18th-century wood engravings of Thomas Bewick, folk prints, the 14 Stations of the Cross, and Hogarth's eight-part The Rake's Progress, published in print form in 1735, which has been described as the 'ancestor to the storyboard'.
We are showing seven from Cally Trench's series of 14: Hatching, Chick, Bathing, Strolling, Singing and Growing Older. We can source more - or all of the rest - if they are required.
They sit together as a folklore-style autobiography for the Bird, encouraging us to empathise as we watch her progress through her short life. She's not intended to be an accurate ornithological representation of any particular species: she's a universal, stylised individual.
Every print is immaculately presented, whether framed or mounted. They are in editions of just 20, hand-printed on Clairefontaine Simili Japon ivory paper, with the birds’ eyes hand-painted in acrylic.
Because they are printed and finished by hand, every print is unique (a variable edition). They are signed, titled and numbered in pencil and stamped with Cally's monogram mark in puce archival ink.
Wonderful observation and attention to detail - and they look stunning as a set.
ABOUT CALLY TRENCH
Cally is a versatile, innovative and prolific artist, working in a range of formats. She is wonderful at inventing an artistic concept and then exploring it through a variety of lenses and media.
We were privileged, last year, to be showing her Metamorphosis series: very powerful and fascinating drawings of hands and feet from which feathers are sprouting. Humans metamorphosing into birds. She spoke fluently and colourfully about them in the gallery during the summer. The fascinating pieces held "the promise of flight, freedom, an escape to the air; but there is the horrendous loss of human identity and the inevitable separation from all the people that you love.”
The aerial garden series we showed earlier this year was focused, instead, on nostalgia, home life and childhood, pattern and plenty. They were a sell-out and were prime examples of how Cally works her way through a concept to transform it into many forms and moods.
What remains constant is her ingenious and inventive imagination and her remarkable ability to capture detail and deal with an aerial viewpoint.
Cally’s work includes finshed board games (which she designs fron concept through to finished playing games, with pieces and rules), short films, books and drawings. She is based in Buckinghamshire.