For over two decades, printmaking has remained central to Giulia Zaniol’s practice, evolving from early woodcuts and etchings to recent collagraphs such as Layers, selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Rooted in Venetian origins, the prints explore memory, erosion and the fragile relationship between place, image and trace.
Early series such as Veniceland examined the tensions between Venice’s historic identity and the pressures of tourism, while Vanishing Memories turned towards family imagery, disappearance and inherited histories. Across the work, ornamental fragments, layered surfaces and repeated impressions draw upon Venice’s mercantile past and traditions of craftsmanship, often disrupted or partially eroded to reflect the instability of a city shaped by water and time.
Increasingly, the printmaking process itself — pressure, accumulation, sedimentation and fragmentation — has become integral to the work, mirroring a wider shift from visual representation towards material enquiry. Zaniol’s prints are held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and Clifford Chance, and her work received the Clifford Chance Postgraduate Printmaking Award, selected by Allen Jones RA.
