Handpicked was a solo show of lithographs shown at the Blue House Gallery in Schull, Ireland in September 2022. Handpicked is an ongoing series of lithographs featuring drawings of artists’ hands, which I consider to be a form of portraiture. The images depict a diverse range of professional artists engaged in some aspect of their individual creative process, often in the act of using a particular specialised tool or object. The object is typically removed from the final image, as I am most interested in focusing on the particular gesture and structure of the hands at work

Installation Shots by John Beasley

The process of stone lithography involves drawing or painting onto a large slab of smoothly sanded limestone. After having being processed it is possible to obtain many copies of the image from the stone using a lithographic printing press. Once a common form of commercial printing, stone lithography is now preferred by some artists due to its impressive ability to reproduce a drawn mark with great sensitivity and accuracy.