Since becoming a LPW member in early 2021, Silka has been assisting on a variety of courses, teaching
printmaking techniques in schools around Leeds, and producing her own creative work.
Born in South Africa, she moved to New Zealand with her family when she was 17 and has been in Leeds for the last year and a half. She graduated from Auckland University with a degree in English and Psychology, but she has slowly shifted her focus into design and printmaking in the last five years after then studying Design at Auckland University of Technology.
Her primary influences stem from a variety of places, most profoundly from her exposure to African art and sculpture, specifically South African rock art which she was exposed to as a child walking in the Drakensberg mountains.
She mainly works with screen print and linocut, and has also been experimenting with the fast and spontaneous process of monoprinting. Looking back at her work over the last few years, she can see certain themes forming – specifically in illustrating and visualising contradictory terms and behaviours; connection/disconnection, chaos/order, restriction/expansion.
Most recently her work has featured in the Aire Place Studios WINIT exhibition, Leeds Print Workshop
members exhibition ‘Out of Proportion’ and a short video montage ‘Duped’ commissioned for the Ilkley Literature Festival.
Instagram: @silkaguy
Website: https://silkamg.bigcartel.com/
