In his recent prints, working with etching and open bite on steel, Ben Hancocks tries to convey his sense of anxiety about the present in a series of work titled ‘Elements of Chaos’. He has described his work as ‘political abstraction’ as changes in world events often cause him to seek a new way of drawing to reflect his feelings.

Recently, for several years, since his return to print making, he has been working on a series of ‘cyclone and hurricane’ forms with shaped zinc plates. It is from these works and the influence of the Apocalypse engravings by France’s first engraver Jean Duvet, and the demon drawings of the 15th century Transoxonain artist Mehmed Siyah Qalam that he finds the form for his present unease.