Print and Paper Artist
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Beth Serjeant describes herself as ‘passionately kiwi’, ‘lucky’ and ‘hooked’, on the smell of the print studio. Beth is a highly respected print and bookmaking artist, who learnt her trade through hands on training whilst working for the media company ‘Dormer Beck Advertising’. Beth began her career at Dormer Beck as a junior artist, and received five years graphic education in what she describes as an ‘informal setting’. She also received further printmaking training from Rodney Fumpston through the Auckland Society of Arts, and trained in bookbinding skills at AIT Auckland Institute of Technology.
Beth has taught as a guest lecturer at Elam Summer School, Unitec, University of Waikato, Tairawhiti (Gisborne) and Eastern Institute of Technology, (Hawke’s Bay).
Beth comes from a family of teachers, and believes in the need to empathise from the student position, and to instil a sense of achievement, encouraging her students to gain from the experience of sharing and learning with and from others. She believes there is much to be gained by learning the disciplines involved with printmaking. Beth Serjeant says she was ‘hooked on the smell and the atmosphere of the printing studio’ from the very first time she entered one, and has long been intrigued by the notion of the ‘book’, as a combination of word and image a powerful creation to contain ‘knowledge, memories, and stories’. The influences in Serjeant’s work go back to her childhood, she never felt she would be anything other than an artist, and as a child remembers thinking of ‘shapes, colours, and patterns’ that all contributed to an inner artistic vision and orientation. “You know you are an artist, I never thought I would be anything other that an artist”.
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