Artists get ready to roll at Blackburn’s first printing festival

Artists Alex Wareing and Antonia Hennerley are getting ready to launch Blackburn’s first printmaking festival.

Blackburn Printfest will run from Friday, May 15 to Saturday, May 16 and will see printmakers come from all over the UK to show their work.

The event being held at The Bureau Arts Centre (the former Citizens Advice Bureau) will open on Friday with an exhibition of contemporary printmaking and live music with performances from George Harris and the Melody Makers among the acts.

Throughout Saturday printmakers including Bristol based artist Victoria Young and screen printer Elliot Coffin who works between London and Australia will be selling their work alongside home grown talent such as Blackburn based illustrator and designer Katie Ryan.

Free workshops will also take place during the day including a body painting session and a lino printing on to recycled materials.

Blackburn College and University students will also be exhibiting and staging their own exhibition.

Antonia Hennerley, 24, University College Blackburn graduate said:

I want to create more opportunities for artists in this area having just graduated last year so I’m particularly excited to be co-organising this event.

We believe passionately that we should use the empty spaces we have here rather than going to Manchester or London where this kind of event happens all the time.

Alex, 22, said he hopes that it will set the precedent for an annual printing festival.

I’m hoping that this will just be the start and the beginning of something that will be quite special.

We’ve got a lot of printmakers based in and around Blackburn and it would great to bring them together and spark off some exciting collaborations.

Blackburn Printfest runs from 6.30pm till late on Friday, May 15 and 10am-5pm on Saturday, May 16 at The Bureau, Victoria Street, Blackburn, BB1 6DW.

More information at ww.blackburnisopen.co.uk  facebook.com/blackburnprintfest