Kirsty Foster

When I visited my section of the wall, it was a hot, sunny day in May. I walked the distance between the milecastles, taking in the route of the wall, the nature around it and the vast expanse of the land around. I had initially thought about using images of the wall, climbing up the slope towards Milecastle 42, but these trees stood out, stark against the sky, emphasising the emptiness of Hadrian’s Wall country.

I had only started printing a year or so before COVID sent us all into lockdown and, bar a few attempts at printing at home using Heath Robinson-like attempts at a press, had not done any work in the last couple of years; this project felt like a great way to get back into things –I stuck with a very simple linocut just to remind myself of techniques and not make it over-complicated.