Completed Studies & Screen Prints In Progress

'Untitled', Screen Print On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

For some time now, I’ve been trying to expand my own art practice in a number of directions beyond simply painting.  As I mentioned a few weeks back, printmaking is one such, and I’ve been able top make a bit more progress with that over recent months.

'Untitled', Screen Print On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

'Untitled', Screen Print On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

'Untitled', Screen Print On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

My previous post on the subject dealt with a two-day screen printing course I undertook at Leicester Print Workshop, but since then I’ve jumped through the necessary hoops, (both financial and practical), and am now a paid-up member.  This will give me the freedom to use their facilities as and when I need to.  My hope is that, by putting in the hours at various points over the coming months - I’ll finally develop the instincts, muscle memory and store of experience necessary to feel really comfortable as a printer.  For now, I’m concentrating on screen printing, not least because it seems ideally suited to the crossover between painting, collage photography and mechanical reproduction, already existing in my work.  I certainly wouldn’t rule out other forms of print in the future though, so watch this space.

'Untitled', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape & Spray Enamel
On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016.  (Original Source Image)

Anyway, I’ve already spent quite a few hours moving forward with some imagery derived from one of the paper-based studies I produced towards the end of last year.  As ever, there’s nothing very purist about my approach.  In fact, just as I seem to be something of a hybrid painter in terms of media, - I'm as likely to rip up a print and collage it back into something else; or to screen a fragmented image onto the surface of an already painted panel; as I am to produce a pristine edition of pure prints.

'Untitled', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Screen Print, Ink, Spray Enamel, Pencil & Ballpoint Pen
& Various Solvents On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

'Untitled', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Screen Print, Ink, Spray Enamel, French Polish, Pencil
Ballpoint Pen & Various Solvents On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

In fact, that process is already under way, with several sacrificial versions from my first serious print run having become part of the mulch of a second group of four collaged/painted studies.  These were in turn scanned and digitally manipulated to create stencils for another, increasingly multi-layered run.  This process is distinctly fractal in nature, with each study or digital reworking offering numerous new alternatives, and even within a single print, just altering the number of contributing colour layers, or the order in which they are laid down, creates yet more potential variants.  I’m still only dipping my toe in the water with all this really, but already feel slightly boggled by how expansive it might potentially become.

'Untitled', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Screen Print, Ink, Spray Enamel, French Polish, Pencil,
Ballpoint Pen & Various Solvents On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

'Untitled', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Screen Print, Ink, Spray Enamel, French Polish,  Pencil,
Ballpoint Pen & Various Solvents On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

'Untitled', Digital Manipulation, 2016

'Untitled', Digital Manipulation, 2016

'Untitled', Digital Manipulation, 2016

'Untitled', Digital Manipulation, 2016

With that in mind, it’s probably worth mentioning that the images of actual screen prints shown here represent stages in an ongoing process - far more than final definitive versions.    My process seems to be to periodically pull out certain prints - allowing them to rest as milestones in a larger process, but for many to go back into the pot for further development.  I have a certain four-colour version in mind as another possible ‘result’ but am already wondering how much further one might just keep layering and increasing the overall density before an image needs to be drastically broken down and recycled all over again.  One strategy I've found to avoid an image from just becoming clogged in excess visual texture, (at any stage), is to periodically apply a stronger graphic motif in an almost arbitrary manner.  Examples of this include elements of text lifted straight out of my pre-existing photos, and blocks of colour derived from grids found within the original studies.   The whole process is far from the traditional printer’s model of the numbered edition, but complies with my mantra of ‘The Same But Different’, and a commitment to the process of mutated evolution.

West Leicester, May 2012

Of course, the real key to much of this lies with the translation of any given image into the digital realm.  It’s hardly an original revelation to point out how many new avenues of replication, versioning, or reproduction, open up as soon as digital manipulation is involved.  Whilst this is also true of more traditional, hand-made printing media, I do suspect the majority of screen prints, for instance, have already been through Photoshop at some point in their image development, nowadays.  The bigger picture is that, for a while, I’ve been talking not only about moving my own practice into a wider range of media, but beyond that - to also take account of the whole issue of translation.  This is envisaged, not only between individual media, but between the realms of the hand-made one-off, traditional/analogue reproduction, and digital imagery too [1.].

'Untitled', Screen Print On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

'Untitled', Screen Print On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

Some pointers to this can still be found in previous posts, about the work of Dan Perfect, for instance, or about Tate Modern’s ‘Painting AfterTechnology’ Exhibit, (to which I’ve referred on several occasions).  Talking about this with a younger colleague at work, the other day, I was led to wonder whether there’s a generational aspect to take into account here.  I’m definitely of an age where I can look back and see my life being divided into two, distinct phases: namely, pre mass-use-of-digital-technology, and post same.  It feels a bit like being a nineteenth century senior remembering a time before the steam engine totally reshaped the world.

'Untitled', Screen Print On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

I can’t help wondering if that’s why the technologically orientated art that interests me most is still that which consciously explores some of the intrinsic qualities of its specific medium, of speaks of the interface between the analogue and the digital.  The majority of those artists who engaged me so much at Tate Modern are, I suspect around my age, or older.  I wonder if a younger generation, through whose lives the digital dimension is more seamlessly woven, might find this idea of it as still something novel and worthy of comment, quaintly outmoded?

'Untitled', Screen Print On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

'Untitled', Screen Print On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2016

For all that, I do believe it remains the job of the artist to interrogate their chosen media, and anyway - we’re all where (and when) we are, and can only proceed on the basis of our own experience.  The point at which you stop at least asking some questions about the changing technologies of image production, and how your own methods do or don’t relate to it is probably the point at which you’ve really rendered yourself properly obsolete.

[1.]:  It seems important to reassert that, for me, this is definitely a two-way process.