OUR STORY - #PRINTLIKE A GIRL
THE PRINTING GIRLS (TPG) is an all-female collective of South African-based artists who work in print. Here’s the background story to our #PRINTLIKEAGIRL gang. In 2009, the six founders of TPG graduated in the Arts from Rhodes University which has always had a strong history of printmaking. During a class reunion exhibition in 2016 they inspired each other to create in print again and began to exhibit as The Printing Girls. The following year they decided to invite new female printmakers to join up, and TPG in its current incarnation began to materialise. But the main focus has never changed - to create a platform exclusively for our country's women printmakers to share ideas, network and exhibit together.
TPG - AIM
To develop a strong professional network of female South African printmakers
• To cultivate a generous culture of sharing skills and information among the TPG members,
• Equip and enhance the printmaking skills of the TPG members,
• Help advance the TPGs as a credible community of female printmakers within the artworld,
• Grow a network of galleries, promoters, and suppliers who are supportive of our aims and will facilitate our exhibiting goals, and
• Provide information to the public about the processes of printmaking by facilitating interactive workshop engagements at TPG exhibitions.
#PRINTLIKEAGIRL! What DOES that mean?? Commitment.
Essentially, as individual artists, each of us makes original prints as a significant part of our ongoing creative output. And as women we are flexible, innovative and encourage each other to follow our own paths – no taboos. Some of us use traditional printmaking methods – etching, relief printing, screenprint - while others exploit contemporary digital, and when in an adventurous mood we'll try out combinations of both.
We are committed to the idea of the multiple – except of course for monotype and experimental one-off prints … as we said, flexible! But – and no exceptions here – we are committed to the professional presentation of prints and to scrupulous documentation.
THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF SIX TPGs Amy Jane van den Bergh, Carmen Ford, Cassey Delissen, Claire Zinn/Ryder, Emma Honiball, and Lucy Stuart-Clark.