David Armes West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
I create typographic artworks that range in scale from large scroll installations to prints and artist's books.
I am an artist working with print, language and geography. My work is frequently site-specific and often considers how place shapes understanding. As a lifetime 'geographer', I am especially interested in borders, liminality and zones of contested space/use. I work primarily with letterpress printing on paper and make artist's books, prints and installations. Through using what was once an industrial process, I am intrigued by where the multiple meets the unique, where the ephemeral meets the archival.
I frequently show at book and print fairs around Europe and in recent years have been artist-in-residence at Industriemuseum (Gent, Belgium, 2021), Bodleian Library (University of Oxford, 2019) and Wells Book Arts Center (New York state, USA, 2017). My work is held in collections internationally, including the British Library, (UK) V&A Art Library (UK), Bodleian Library (University of Oxford, UK), Museum für Druckkunst (Leipzig, DE) and the University of Bergen (NO). I was a Visiting Fellow at the British Library from 2021-2024.
Artwork
knooper weg, Letterpress, 2024, 30
back rivers lammas land, Letterpress, 2024, 30
the endless search for lazarus toshner, Letterpress, 2023, 30
tumbling the gradients, Letterpress, 2022, 30
WE WILL BREAK YOUR CHAINS, Letterpress, collagraph, 2020, £125
the stone remembers, Letterpress, 2022, £30
vezels, Letterpress, 2021, £30
Projects and exhibitions
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Typographic Landscapes at Print International 202507/11/2025 — 30/01/2026 As part of the biennial Print International exhibition, my entire 'Typographic Landscapes' print series was shown. https://www.typawb.wales/event/print-international-2025/ |
Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham | Details |
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The Inchoate Schematic01/02/2023 — 28/02/2023 The Inchoate Schematic is a series of 20 drawings created while artist-in-residence at TopShed in Norfolk, UK, 2018. The drawings use a typewriter, carbon copy paper, watercolour ink and a Tekagraph as tools to respond to Bruno Munari's famous 'Design As Art' essays. |
The Six Shot Gallery, Online | Details |
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"I Am A" - part of the Danielle Teale Dance exhibition01/06/2021 — 18/12/2022 “I Am A” is a paper installation that uses the movements of dancers as source material for mark-making. The dancers’ thoughts about their experience are distilled down to a single word, overlaid onto those marks but emerging from a matrix of letters, mirroring the way movements emerge from complex experiences and feelings. The work was... [Read more] |
UK-wide, UK-wide | Details |
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the action of water01/09/2017 — 17/12/2017 For The Action Of Water, I worked with West Yorkshire Archaeological Services to use their 2013-14 survey of the Victoria Gate site in central Leeds as the starting point for new work. I was especially interested in the archaeological classification systems that look at overlapping categories and with the layers of material uncovered during... [Read more] |
East Street Arts, 130 Vicar Lane, Leeds | Details |