We're excited to share a behind-the-scenes peek at artist Giles Round's process of creating Cala Domestica, Summer, 1975 - a six-colour limited-edition screen print.

Let's take a look at the ideas that inspired this artwork, from hot Sardinian summers to the meticulous technique of screen printing.

Through the summer of 2022, Giles created a body of work intended as an offering to the artist, filmmaker and queer rights activist Derek Jarman, as per the tradition of the shingle left on top of Jarman's headstone.

Giles' six-colour screen print depicts Cala Domestica, Sardinia, and is a shot taken from Jarman's film Sebastiane (1976). It depicts 'cliffs, above sharp luna rocks with green rock pools, and a blue sea beyond' (Dancing Ledge, 1984).

This image, recurring through different mediums, represents the desire of high summer and the electric tension of heatwaves. 

Screen printing is an exacting, centuries-old process - the beauty of which is reflected in the work itself, as each piece is a little bit different and has a certain hand-crafted quality.

Giles' helpful assistant, Hoffman, in the studio.

Giles Round (b. 1976, London) lives and works in London and St. Leonards-on-Sea. Round is an artist who works across disciplines, including art, design and architecture. Round's works often take the form of long-term, open-ended projects in which exhibitions themselves become the medium. An ongoing work, 'The Art Direction of the Noguchi Museum' (2018–) is an enquiry into the role an artist might play as an embedded part of institutional and design teams, but also of society's infrastructures and organisations at large.

In 2011 Round co-founded The Grantchester Pottery, a collaborative design studio structured loosely on Roger Fry's Omega Workshops Ltd, with the intention to 'substitute, wherever possible, the directly expressive quality of the artist's handling for the deadness of mechanical reproduction'. Centred around ceramics and painting, The Grantchester Pottery can be understood as an artists' collective, a dysfunctional business and as a conceptual artwork in itself. The Grantchester Pottery has designed Stony Point 1972 wallpaper for CommonRoom.

Round's recent exhibitions include: Back to Earth, Serpentine Galleries, London, 2022 (group); Persones, Persons, Biennale Gherdëina ∞, Val Gardena, Dolomites, 2022 (group); 91 days of clear blue skies, Quench, Margate, 2021 (solo); Untitled, circa 1994, Brighton CCA, Brighton, 2020 (solo).

Cala Domestica, Summer, 1975. Six-colour screen print on Somerset satin 300gsm. Edition of 50. Numbered and signed by the artist. Dimensions: A3 (297 x 420 mm).

Giles' piece is available exclusively at CommonRoom, as part of a limited-edition fine art print series from some of our contemporary artists.