Loraine Monk’s family were working-class Londoners; her background has influenced her politics, academic research and artist practice. Her work is inspired by local and community history. 
Having moved from painting to relief printing in 2019, she used the act of cutting to make tactile the visceral anger of inequality and political disengagement. Deliberately echoing  the work of  the German Expressionists, she made a series of images involving protests, exploring the bitter divisions of British society highlighted by “Brexit ” a, this evolved from a series of Prints inspired by the Gillet Jean protest in Paris. The protest series culminated in a large Lino Print: Never Stop Protesting. (I .7 metres x  1 metre).

 Loraine believes the medium of printing, with its representation of  light and dark, and  sheer physicality needed to tear the image from its placid surface, to the turmoil beneath, is a perfect medium to represent political struggle. She continues  to use print to explore the bitter fragmentations of society.

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