Grace Edkins

Grace is an artist-printmaker from the fishing town of Leigh-on-Sea on the Essex coastline. She is a self-taught printmaker working in the relief methods of woodcut and linocut, and often combining the two. Living close to the water and marshes of the Thames Estuary, the beautiful landscape is a constant source of inspiration for her work.

Grace graduated from the University of Essex in 2007 with a BA in Graphic Design but it was the change of pace during lockdown that led her to discover printmaking and dedicate herself to her own creative practice around raising a young family.

Grace is inspired by the flora and fauna of her local area and her work is deeply rooted in seasonal changes and cycles, exploring elements in detail and the beauty of the sometimes overlooked familiar.

All her prints start life as a drawing, usually from a sketch whilst out walking. The drawing is then developed back in her studio and transferred onto a block, or drawn straight onto a block for carving. Grace’s prints are created without a press by hand in small limited-editions. She enjoys the slow process and the opportunity to have control over the variation in hand burnishing.