Earlier this year I decided that it was about time that I had my own website.
It was going to be a pretty fancy site full of interactive elements, free downloads, archived art projects and a fully functioning web emporium full of paintings, odd little print experiments and limited editions.
And then the world went to shit.
Locked down at home with no access to the print workshop or art studio I had to find a way to exist and make art in this new weird order. One of the reasons I got into printing was that I always believed that art should be affordable, something to be enjoyed by everyone, and printing made this possible. With this in mind I sought some help and bought a fancy Oki C612DN A4 printer, a beautiful device that can handle printing onto heavy duty card and art papers.
Armed with this new machine I set about going through old artworks of mine, selecting pieces from my chaotic back catalogue and adapting them so that they work as digital prints. Some of these are from my earliest screen print exhibition ‘The Belfast that Time Forgot’
When I first put ‘The Belfast that Time Forgot’ together I had so little money that I could only afford to create very small editions of each piece and at least once a week for the last 6 years I get an email asking when I am going to re-release some prints from that collection. The answer I guess, is now. It has just come about in a way that I had never dreamed could or would happen. Before the old world fell apart I was working on a couple of new exhibitions and now that these have been postponed or outright cancelled I have started adapting some of these pieces as digital prints too.
Whether art is for activism, entertainment or to just look nice, I still think that, even in these weird times, art is important as it can open a window out of lockdown and help us imagine a positive future that we can build from the good bits of the past. Over the next month or so I will begin to take down my old shop site and migrate everything over to the one but in the mean time my screen prints and limited editions will continue to exist over here leoboydprints.bigcartel.com.
I hope you enjoy this new site and if you have any questions or feedback please don’t hesitate to contact me via the contact page.
Stay safe everyone
Leo