Ian’s work is rooted in landscape and a fascination with its small-scale details and textures. He works primarily with sugar lift and spit-bite aquatint, building up the image in layers of tightly-controlled drawing, and more abstract, semi-random marks which mimic the natural textures of the landscape. He finds a constant tension between a natural tendency towards realism and finely rendered detail, and a desire to simplify and abstract the image to achieve a looser rendering that maintains the energy of sketches made in the field.
