Glasgow-based Canadian artist Ciara Philips (1976) stands almost entirely for printmaking, the majority of her work is the result of printmaking in the broadest sense, from textiles, serigraphy and photography to site-specific wall works. Philips was shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2014 earlier that year. She is the second nominee Little artnecdotes introduces in anticipation of the awards ceremony in December, after the Englishman Tris Vonna-Michell.

Collaboration is often an integral part of Phillips’s oeuvre working with designers, artists or groups in the local community. She exploits the use of the working collectivity that printing techniques invite. She likes to combine the critical and democratic potential of graphic art with a formal analysis of the specificity of the art of printing. She gets her inspiration from various disciplines, traditions and histories. Phillips’s interest lies in both the physical processes of the technique as well as the capacity to test, explore and develop ideas through it. She layers colour with images and works both on large and small scales. The work A lot of things put together (2013) is a large hanging piece which is made of 5 overlapping sheets of printed cotton. She combined black-and-white photographs of figures with abstract symbols and coloured blocks.