Agile City Member Spotlight : Matthew Rich , M.A.R.S Print Studio

For our latest Agile City Member Spotlight, we sat down with master printmaker and Glue Factory tenant Matthew Rich! Matthew runs M.A.R.S Print Studio — a dedicated printmaking facility shaped by more than 40 years of hands-on experience. Fresh from leading a studio printmaking workshop, he took the time to share some insights into his practice.

Who are you and what do you do? 

I’m Matthew Rich aka M.A.R.S Print Studio, I’ve been a screen printer since the late 1970s but in a past life, somewhere in the middle, I was also a primary school  teacher. 

How long have you been a tenant at Glue Factory & what attracted you to the building? 

Nearly a year at the Glue Factory. I moved from my previous Hidden Lane studio in December 2024. I was being asked more and more often to make larger screen prints and I needed more space.  

How did you settle on your current method of working? 

I’ve worked in different ways within the world of screen printing: as a regular production printer, a technical researcher and a trainer. In the early nineties though,  I got a job at Coriander Studios working alongside artists as a collaborative printer.  I fell in love with this role and it’s the central plank of my work now. 

Collaboration seems an integral part of your practice. Can you tell us a bit  about what a studio community can do to bolster this? 

When I moved to Glasgow nearly five years ago, I set up my first print studio in  Hidden Lane at the centre of a community of artists and designers. It was a great  start in a new city: easy to make links that gradually led to new collaborative work.  I was reluctant to leave the Lane but shouldn’t have worried. Being part of the Glue community is already leading to new links and new exciting projects. A great example is my Frankie coffee neighbours introducing me to Big Heid artist Panda. That meeting started a rich collaboration with the new Grateful Gallery crew. (Check them out!) 

You often work alongside musicians, as well as visual artists and designers.  Do you find much crossover between these two mediums? 

Yes! The Glasgow music and art scenes are inextricably linked. For me, two really  important hubs in this network have been The Revelator (check this out too!) and  Monorail Music. At both of these, I’ve been involved in visual art exhibitions and they have both been the starting point for collaborations with bands such as The Tenementals, Belle and Sebastian and the Pastels, work on screen printed record  sleeves and the locations for live screen printing at gigs and exhibitions.

Do you have any words of advice for those hoping to pursue a career in the visual arts? 

Perhaps I should pass on a bit of advice given to me by Brad Faine who ran Coriander Studios, one of the biggest and best known fine art screen printing  studios in Europe.  

Brad said “You know you’ll never make any money doing this!”

Where can we find out more about M.A.R.S Studio and your work?  

M.A.R.S Poorly updated website! And on instagram.

A selection of Matthew’s personal archive, encompassing prints, drafts and photographs, has recently been on display in Mono, Glasgow and The Social, London. In contingence with the exhibition, a selection of his photographs has been published by Cafe Royal Books, available here.