A person is holding up a large lithographic print of a fossilized body prints, with the corresponding print surface on a stone slab below, in a printmaking workshop.

Growing up in Lincolnshire before moving to Wales to study Fine Art, Oscar Faulkner has been surrounded by rural landscapes and exploring connections between biology and geology based in a childhood interest in stones, minerals, and fossils. He recently graduated from MA Art and Science at Central Saint Martins where he focused on stone lithography and exploring the minerality of the human body.

In his project LithoKeratin, he worked across the print studio and the laboratory, combining lithography with biomineralisation to imagine a reciprocal relationship between stone and biological matter. His multi-layer stone lithographs consist of body prints surrounded by the effects of evapourated salt and gum solutions, while his biomineralised hair is formed from bacteria and a calcium source. Both processes involve calcium carbonate but are like reverses of each other, impressing the body on the stone then encrusting the biological in stone.

Past projects include using iron oxide to make paint, growing salt crystals on handspun yarn made from wool and human hair, and creating etching books with biomaterial covers that relate to the topic inside. Recurring themes between all these projects include the body and land combined with the use of time intensive processes such as bookmaking with etchings or stone lithography.

A man in a green shirt using a roller with a handle on a large stone slab in a workshop setting.
Print workshop with large lithography stones on a workbench and pencil sketches, beside a windowsill cluttered with art supplies, pens, potted plants, and containers, near a large window.
Laboratory shelf with glass bottles and flasks containing yellow and clear liquids, some labeled with handwritten notes, on a metal surface.
A printing press in a workshop, with a silhouette of geological forms in black on a cream-colored lithography stone ready to be printed.
A young man in a green shirt working in a workshop or studio, handling a large sheet of shiny, reflective material, with various tools and supplies on the workbench nearby, and large windows with blinds in the background.
A young man in a green shirt working in a workshop or studio, handling a large sheet of shiny, reflective material, with various tools and supplies on the workbench nearby, and large windows with blinds in the background.