Talking Heads is a live, long-term and collaborative printmaking project by Peter Spriggs. Peter’s objective is to complete a portfolio of portraits, using collagraph techniques, of living Welsh poets and writers.
The collaboration is visual and literary. Peter meets each poet/writer and they engage in a dialogue. Peter then executes a portrait of each poet/writer and then invites them to write a verse or poem or line of their work in their own handwriting directly in the margins of the print or directly on the print. The poet also writes their signature on the print, as does Peter, to complete their collaboration.
There is a documentary feature to each portrait-print: Peter’s visual interpretation of the poet/writer, a written sample of the poet’s/writer’s work, handwriting and signature and Peter’s signature.
To date there are approximately seventy portraits of which some are complete and others in progress.
After an initial introduction to collagraphy workshops with Alan Williams at Swansea Print Workshop, Peter Spriggs gradually developed his own working methods and techniques.
He first engaged with art seriously as an undergraduate Fine Art student at Cardiff Metropolitan University and then as a painting student at the Royal College of Art, London. For years, he was a Lecturer in Fine Art at Carmarthen School of Art, Coleg Sir Gar. He is now a Technical Demonstrator in Printmaking at Swansea College of Art, UWTSD.
Peter is a first language Welsh speaker and has been immersed throughout his life in its cultures and creative events like Eisteddfods. He was honoured and accepted into Gorsedd Cymru (Welsh Druid’s Circle) for his contributions to art and art education at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 2024.
Peter has used the same technique in all the portraits. A portrait is first drawn on a cardboard collagraph block and this is then covered with a membrane of creased tissue paper. The creases in the tissue paper later become vehicles for holding ink for printing purposes. The block is varnished with a quick-drying varnish and the drawing is then built up using a hot-melt glue-gun. The collagraph is inked with etching ink and wiped to control lighter and darker tones as desired. Peter prints on Somerset 300g paper, 76 x 56cm. using an etching press.
Mererid Sherwood | showing the collagraph plate on the right and the finished print on the left
Cleif Harpwood | showing the collagraph plate on the left and the finished print on the right