Beverley Matchette-Downes trained as a painter, achieving a BA in Fine Art at Bucks New University in 2007 and since then has completed an MA in Printmaking there where she achieved a Distinction in 2010. Printmaking is currently the main focus of her practice, so much so, that she recently acquired her own press in order to spend more time experimenting with this exciting medium.
She works out of a studio at Commercial Square Studios, Leigh Street, in High Wycombe, Bucks www.commercialsquarestudios.co.uk Her work has been accepted at various selective exhibitions in London and the home counties; most notably at the ‘Unitled’ Art Fair, Chelsea, London, ‘Bite’ Mall Galleries, London and ‘At Play’ at South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell. She also regularly exhibits at group shows, most recently at the Commercial Square Studio Christmas Open Studio weekend in November 2012 and ‘A Sense of Place’ at the Henley Exhibition Centre, Henley-on-Thames in June 2012.
She specialises in the intaglio techniques of etching and drypoint and the relief process of linocut, examples of which are shown here.
She is currently experimenting with monoprinting and drypoint combined and has been using colour, having, for a long period, concentrated largely on monochrome prints. The subject of her work varies but her concerns are always about pictorial balance – cropping seems to be a hallmark of her work and this maybe in part due to her using the photographic source imagery she takes herself, as a basis for her drawing.
Beverley Matchett-Downes enjoys the processes of printmaking which she considers a way of ‘slowing down’ the process of layering, which in turn gives greater control and contemplation of the outcome of that layering – layering and depth being so much part of the process of good painting. More information about her work and contact details can be found on her website www.mdart.co.uk
