Chris Brown's x St Jude's Surface Print Collaboration

Christopher Brown has created a wallpaper design, Albion, bringing to life his memories of Edward Bawden with whom he studied and worked at the RCA

"The idea behind “ALBION", my wallpaper design for St Jude’s Fabrics, was based on two of my lino cuts for a memorial exhibition at the Fine Arts Society in 1989, celebrating the life and work of Edward Bawden. Two towers facing each other, one for Edward and one for me, with “rooms” which contain images which remind me of my time spent with him.

I thought this concept of towers and rooms would work well for a wallpaper, each room somehow interacting with those surrounding it. I thought these rooms should contain objects and characters that reminded me of England, perhaps a slightly romantic view but also with some humour. Rural life, mythology, Shakespearian characters, historical characters, the seaside…

Initial roughs were made, then revised, then revised again before I was happy with the design. I had to consider the repeat, I wanted the viewer to enjoy looking at the images, with the repeat not appearing too obvious. St Jude’s were happy with the idea so then the cutting began. I wanted to cut the block to scale so that when printed it had the feel of a “block print”.

Colour was then considered. We selected about twenty or so colour variations - with the images in black and a tone colour of the background colour. In the end we selected three alternatives; a black on white version, a terracotta and finally a sage green. Recently the black and white version was used to decorate the walls of the exhibition “EDWARD BAWDEN & ME” which I curated at the Higgins Gallery in Bedford.  I thought it looked very handsome but then I'm biased, that said I’m yet to use my design on a wall in my home!

More of Chris's lino creations here. 

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