Award winning printmaker, Jess Bugler will exhibit Memory States at The Courtyard from today until Sunday, February 18.

Jess Bugler recently moved to Hereford, where she now works at Hereford College of Arts, sharing her knowledge of the technical side of printing, a technique she loves for its

"It's a strange process," she says, "I like the tactile side of cutting lino and aesthetically I love how the layering of ideas works so well in print, when you can really develop the process and different ideas and keep going back to explore the nature of different ideas."

Memory States explores the nature of traumatic memory and each piece within the collection is a different exploration of a captured fragment. Speaking out of personal experience, the work is not a narrative or logical sequence signifying encounters between the past and present.

Using print to pursue the nature of these memories, Bugler encompasses both traditional processes such as linocut and modern technology including the laser cutter and Xerox machine.

One of her most striking series of prints centres on the war in Syria. In an interview with Printmaking Today in 2015, she explained what inspired the work and why she was compelled to make it:

"Like all of us I was aware of the war in Syria, but in the busyness of everyday life had pushed it to one side. The hugeness of the human catastrophe seemed too much to process... I felt that taking this subject into the space of an art gallery would allow us to stop and comprehend the reality of what is happening. The destructive brutality of war.

"It made sense to me to make this image very complex, to spend the time documenting the detail of this destruction. The process of making a linocut is very time-consuming ... it felt appropriate to document the destruction of this great city (Aleppo) and of so many people's lives and homes."

The prints being exhibited at The Courtyard are, says Jess, "about how our minds work and how we retain memory, and how particularly traumatic events play back in our memory. I wanted to explore that in print. Sometimes exploring things visually resonates with people more than when it's just written down.

"William Kentridge (a South African artist who make work inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) had written a lot about how you want both to forget and remember at the same time. In this constant process of memories becoming loops in your head and yet when things are pushed away you are trying to get back to the purity of that memory."

Having recently moved to Hereford, Jess was inspired by the space at The Courtyard to approach them with a view to exhibiting Memory States, one of tye pieces in which won her the Hawthorn Prize at last year's Flourish Awards.

She is also the current recipient of the Peter Reddick Bursary Award and has exhibited at the National Original Print Exhibition and the International Print Biennale.

The exhibition runs from today until Sunday, February 18, and entry is free. For more information on The Courtyard’s Visual Arts programme contact the box office on 01432 340555.