I was extremely lucky to take up a visiting fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford for a research sabbatical from September to December 2025. The college is extraordinary in every way; it was established in 1438 and is steeped in history, art, literature, architecture, philosophy, law, politics, science, scholarship, and long-held customs, rules and traditions. Officially All Souls is ‘The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed, of Oxford’.

The name and original mission of the College inspired my print making in a subliminal way which only became apparent at the end of each printing session when I was ‘playing’ and experimenting with the back of my etched copper plate. The original plan for my etchings was to produce prints of the College’s imposing twin towers within it’s North Quad, designed by Nicholas Hawskmoor between 1716 and 1720. I had captured these stunning towers with a moonlight photo on the evening of one of the College’s feast nights.  I used a traditional hard ground line etching followed by two iterations of aquatint to build shade and long shadows.

The first prints were in a mix of black and blue charbonel inks printed on broad canvas’ heavy watercolour paper. As the prints progressed, I started to include ‘weeds’ and wildflowers which grew with profusion through the stone walkways around the twin towers’ North Quad. Wall daisies and Adiantum ferns broke the college’s rules and order. They were permitted to break the clean architectural lines which I found a fascinating juxtaposition.

I started to incorporate dried and fresh wildflowers which I collected from the college quads into my prints of the towers, first overlayed on the buildings as I have done in many previous prints, but then in the stary skies high above the college. They appeared like souls or constellations within scrimmed swirls of inks printed from the unetched back of the tower etching. Fresh plants yielded green stained oils which smudged the pressed edge of the etched print like the fossilization process that I was working on as a visiting fellow of All Souls and again echoing the juxtaposition of order and wildness, rules and freedom, human imposed and nature.

All of the prints produced as part of the ‘All Souls’ series were printed in Oxford Printmakers Studio as unique prints on a Harry F. Rochat press with Charbonel inks on 300g Langton paper. One framed piece was exhibited in the ‘North Wall’ Print Exhibition.