Catherine Ade: Lithography

Through an autobiographical lens, Catherine Ade's practice explores the dualities of identity, memory, and belonging. She explores place and the human connection to it through family history, and her personal family connection to the land. She is drawn to states of transition, between exterior and interior worlds, psychological and physical, absence and presence, surface and depth. 

Catherine paints and draws directly on to the lithographic limestone with traditional crayons and tusche: a process which unites the drawn and painted mark. The use of water-based washes occurs as a material and a metaphor — rain, tears — vessels expanding the notion of fluidity of memories and cycles of nature. The lithographic wash is applied to the stone and left to dry naturally, letting the reticulated patterns form their paths which follow the movement of the hand that applies them.

The etching process in lithography chemically changes the surface of the matrix and the image is printed from the flat surface of the plate or stone. This is called planographic printing. The image is chemically processed with gum arabic and nitric acid solution which transforms the drawing into the printing matrix. During printing the stone is constantly kept damp and the water forms a protective barrier on the non-drawn area which only allows the inky roller to touch the drawn areas. Each colour layer requires a different stone to be used, and this is a slow and meditative process which allows many different visual effects to be obtained. Catherine is the co-author of Lithography: An Artists Guide and runs The Lemonade Press in Bristol.