Printing became a new way of creating a mark, image or feeling, cutting into a surface. Taking away to add to the image, seeing it in various stages, opened up endless possibilities.

Technique can be helpful, also seductive. Fundamentally, the work is built on drawing, suggesting weight, space and being constantly aware of the container, the edges.

Ann Dowker is a painter, draughtsman and printmaker, born in Sheffield. She studied at Bath Academy of Art, Corsham, and the Central School of Art and Design. She began etching in 1978 and took a part-time lithography course in 1981. She has exhibited extensively since 1990, including with Theo Waddington, Angela Flowers and Art Space Gallery.

Dowker taught at Chelsea School of Art and the Byam Shaw School of Art for ten years and has been a freelance tutor at the National Gallery and a tutor at the Royal Drawing School since its foundation in 2000. She worked for many years with Leon Kossoff, printing his etchings and collaborating on his Poussin series. She was also involved in his exhibition at the National Gallery.

Her first visit to Egypt in the early 2000s led to a lasting engagement with the country, and she subsequently established a home and studio on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor. Her 2018 exhibition Paintings from Thebes at Art Space Gallery was accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by the distinguished art historian Juliet Wilson-Bareau. Dowker now works between London and Egypt.

Her work is held in public and private collections including the Government Art Collection, Manchester City Art Gallery, the Australian Embassy and New College, Cambridge, The Women's Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge.