'Constructed City' 12: K

All images: 'Constructed City' Screen Prints (Work In Progress), Leicester Print Workshop, February 2020

The rash of redevelopment work currently transforming sectors of Leicester is progressing, almost faster than my own 'Constructed City' project that feeds on it.  Nevertheless, printing work continues whenever I can get into Leicester Print Workshop, and a steady momentum is being maintained, thankfully.

The black layers have now been added to the first of my CMYK 'fragments', and, whilst there are always a few technical duds amongst any run of prints (or, any of mine - at least), there are also enough good 'uns to go into the pot.  This includes several completely 'straight' versions of the image, along with various other deliberately miss-registered experiments, and others where one or another of the CMYK colours were omitted, or where white was added to the four inks.

While preparing for the next of these primarily photographic images, I've also returned to the more free-form and increasingly layered prints that have been in play for quite a while now.  I began by thinking of these as potential backgrounds, but as many are now so dense with imagery, I may need to revise that notion a bit.  As I've mentioned before, the ultimate aim is to reconfigure all this stuff through a process of collage - and until then, it's futile to pre-judge exactly how well one section or another might sit.

The real trick is to resist the urge to think of any single print as a definitive image in its own right.  That's increasingly difficult, as some of them appear to reach something resembling individual resolution, and the desire to have some finished 'product' nags away.  But the key to this way of working is to keep all possibilities open for as long as possible, and to be prepared to 'kill one's darlings' at any stage.

It's all a bit Tantric, in terms of delayed gratification, I suppose, but all I can do is relish the mounting sense of anticipation.  I'm still in the generating-content phase for now, but definitely looking forward to the point when the chopping-up and rejoining can commence.  It feels a little closer, and hopefully - that's when something even more significant will emerge.  If not - I guess I'll still have loads of photos of inky screens...