About the Film

This potato print documentary film is part of a series about printmaking commissioned by Northern Print. It follows artist Stephen Chambers as he creates a potato print for Glossary, a touring exhibition celebrating the very best in contemporary printmaking.

Glossary took viewers on a journey into the private studios of seven artists working across the UK, through a series of specially commissioned films that I shot, edited and produced. Each artist worked with a different medium, and the resulting films give a helpful introduction to a range of popular printmaking techniques.

A Simple Technique, Freshly Seen

Potato printing is often one of the first techniques anyone encounters, usually at school, cutting a shape into a halved potato and pressing it into paint. Watching Stephen Chambers return to something so familiar as a working artist is part of what makes this potato print documentary film worth making. The simplicity of the tool sits alongside a level of control and intention that only comes with years of practice.

There is something quietly disarming about seeing a well-known contemporary artist working with a material so ordinary. It says as much about printmaking’s range as any of the more elaborate techniques in the Glossary series, that the same fundamental idea, transferring an image from one surface to another, can hold at both ends of that spectrum.

Filming Stephen Chambers

As with the rest of the Glossary series, my approach here was observational. I wanted the film to sit quietly in the studio and let the process speak for itself, watching the potato being cut, the paint applied, the print pulled and repeated. There is no voiceover explaining what is happening. The work is legible enough on its own.

Shot alongside six other films for the same commission, this one plays a particular role in the series, a reminder that printmaking’s more experimental and unconventional edges often begin with the simplest of tools.

My Practice and Printmaking

Films like this one sit close to the centre of what I care about as a documentary filmmaker. I am drawn to process, to the unglamorous middle part of making something, the buying of materials, the false starts, the moment a technique that looked simple on paper turns out to need real skill. Potato printing invites people to underestimate it, and that is exactly why I wanted to film it properly rather than treat it as a footnote in a longer, more serious-looking series.

There is a parallel here with my own work that I think about often. Documentary filmmaking and printmaking both depend on transferring something, an image, an idea, a moment, from one surface to another, and both rely on patience with a process that cannot be rushed without losing what made it worth doing. Editing a film is not so different from pulling a print: you make choices about pressure, timing and what to leave out, and you rarely know exactly what you have until it is finished.

Working across the Glossary series gave me the chance to see that same instinct expressed through completely different materials and scales, from Julian Meredith’s monumental woodblocks to Stephen Chambers’ potato. Filming each one on its own terms, rather than imposing a single house style across the series, felt like the only honest way to do the work justice.

About Northern Print and the Glossary Exhibition

Northern Print is a leading printmaking studio and gallery based in Newcastle, supporting artists and audiences through exhibitions, studio access and education. The Glossary exhibition brought together some of the best in contemporary printmaking, with each artist’s work accompanied by a specially commissioned film. You can find out more about their work at northernprint.org.uk.