Diana Croft

I studied illustration at Brighton University in the 1980’s and then worked in London editioning complicated multi-plate colour etchings and collagraphs for the Printmaker Brenda Hartill. I moved to Dorking just before the millennium and set up my studio at home where I produce collagraphs, linocuts, stained glass and mixed media paintings. I am a long time member of the Greenwich Printmakers co-operative and a co-ordinator for the Surrey Open Studios scheme which I have participated in ever since it started. In 2015 and 2019 I was shortlisted for the Surrey Artist of the Year and in 2018 I was delighted to have a solo exhibition at the Watts Contemporary Gallery My work is a direct response to particular places and objects, either carefully composed still-life designs or the landscapes of the North and South Downs, and the north Kent coast where I grew up. I aim to evoke the essence of the place rather than produce a completely naturalistic representation. I change perspective and colours and exaggerate the curves of the hills to create the effect I want resulting in a more rhythmic stylised image. I love colour and pattern and playing with the picture space, particularly evident in my still-life linocuts where the image goes from positive to negative cutting across the different planes within the design. I have recently become fascinated with reduction linocuts finding the technique both challenging and totally absorbing