NINA SAGE - PRINTMAKER

I am a Hilton based printmaker who enjoys portraying the natural world, creating colourful, multi-layered prints in small variable editions. I specialise in linocut but also enjoy woodcut and wood engraving.

Printmaking gives me a buzz because it gives me the opportunity to combine my creative streak with a love of practical experimentation fostered during my career as a scientist and teacher. I love that moment when you take the first pull off a new plate. My inspiration comes from a lifelong love of the natural world and my experiences working as a professional ecologist in the water industry in particular. It is no surprise that water and the life within it is a recurring theme in my work and many of my prints feature the wildlife habitats and species I worked with in the field. I think I might be a bit obsessed with water and trying to capture the light on it and its movement!

Linocut is my preferred method as I immediately felt at home from the first moment I picked up a gouge in earnest. I find it hugely satisfying creating a beautiful image from a humble floor tile. I use both reduction and multi-block methods, often combining both to get the result I want. I frequently monoprint layers as I like painterly effects which means I often make variable editions. I rarely use ink straight from the tube preferring to mix my own colours as I like subtle shades in differing levels of transparency.

Igniting a student’s passion for print is a great joy and I enjoy teaching workshops at my studio.

I have a BSc in Biology/Geology Joint Honours from Manchester University specialising in Ecology, Marine Biology and Palaeontology. I did my PGCE at Oxford University before working as a biology teacher in secondary schools in Yorkshire for a number of years. I then moved to Cambridgeshire to become Anglian Water’s (AW) Conservation Scientist. I left AW in 1998 to have a family and took my Art A level (a childhood ambition) at night at Swavesey Village College in 2009 and completed Foundation Art at Cambridge Regional College in 2010 specialising in print. I completed my formal training as a printmaker at the Curwen Print Study Centre under the watchful gaze of Susan Jones MA and was awarded a distinction in the Advanced Certificate of Printmaking in 2012.

My husband bought me my own Rollaco press for our wedding anniversary that year and I haven’t looked back since!

I’m a member of Cambridge Open Studios and Cambridge Drawing Society exhibiting locally and teaching in my studio.