Last Press (6 March 2026 at Coffee Cabinet) set out and successfully marked a cohort of ECA artists mastering and pushing printmaking. Heinously labelled by John Ruskin as an “indolent and blundering medium” these nine artists showcased the versatility and subsequent vitality of the medium. Perfectly exhibited by head organiser Lily Leaver beyond the institution of the gallery in the more approachable space of a new town café, this exhibition invited viewers of varying degrees of art savviness to ruminate on a medium often overlooked. Amidst an atmosphere fuelled by the first sunsets of spring, espresso martinis and the soft acoustic hum of live music, this exhibition both triumphed its contributors, but also its charitable cause, with the majority of proceedings going towards Breast Cancer Now. From play to politics, and finely etched lines to bold gestural strokes, Last Press juxtaposed the variety of styles developed over its creators’ respective explorations in printmaking.
On entry, one was met with the sublime “Rubble” by Lily Leaver (@lilyleaverart), radiating a refined mastery of dry point etching and atmospheric suggestion, to create an environmentally dystopic scene that led into her other works evoking beautifully nightmarish environmental futures. Next to these works, the medium is flipped from Lily’s unwelcoming yet majestic atmospheres into Bess Schofield (@bessies.art) politically playful caricatural etchings. Instigating a dichotomy between cheerful guile and potent sketches of political disarray, Bessie’s energetic lines scratch the eye with garish yet exciting scenes of crude socio-political commentary.
Moving through the room, Sophia Rehman’s (@sophiarehmanstudio) works dive arguably the deepest in the exhibition into personal expression. Exploring her Pakistani heritage amidst British culture, Sophia presents scenes populated by South Asian motifs and haunted by British symbols of intimidation to render her experience of stigmatisation and cultural tension on the page.
Daisy Marsh’s (@lilybog) works deploy the ruggedness of her “unconventional” printmaking techniques to produce texturally rich depictions of fragmented bodies exploring modern conceptions of “rurality and environment.” Molly Jones’ (@mollys_artstudio) lino print works, extending the cultural focus into a triumphant exercise into crystallising the atmospheric and cerebral vibe of 90s rave scenes in triumphant bursts of chromatic patterning.
The fluidity of Molly’s works continues into the works of Sorrel Mitchell (@sorrellmitchellart) and Cherish Stotesbuy (@cheri.creates), where the ephemeral liminality is captured in the chance nature of monotype (one time) prints which evoke a far more gestural approach to printmaking. Through evocative movements of ink, Sorrel suggests bodies and architecture in a way that uplifts the mundane into beautifully liminal and uncertain snapshots of her perspective. Cherish’s works equally encapsulate a lived perspective, capturing the colours and haziness of dusk and dawn, drawing us out of the material into an encounter with the ephemeral ethereality of half-light.
This sense of embodied experience sustains in Seonaid Jervis’ (@seonaiddraws) fragmented depictions of architectural memory, where strong lines delineating fragments of brutalist architecture she observed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, are invigorated by delicate deployments of varying hues evoking a beyond-architectural experience of the buildings. Finally, Mouse Powell’s (@mouse.powell_art) works, punctuated the exhibition with bold yet masterfully rendered portraits of fictionalised and anatomically reimagined faces. Re-imagined from their original paintings in risographic print, the texture of the layered printing technique vitalises Mouses’ works’ visual feel.
Whilst the exhibition set out to unify those practicing within a shared medium, I hope I have captured the multitude of iterations and reimagining’s of the medium this exhibition so expertly brought to my attention. Inevitably the briefness of my review will eclipse the depth and conceptual rigour these artists place in their work, so I would implore you to explore their pages in greater depth, as these works and this exhibition signal an open and dynamic future for the medium once so unforgivably labelled “indolent.”
Photo provided by Gussie McMorran for The Student