Mutant Materials 6

There are three artists I'm looking at in relation to printing and transparent/translucent materials - Jeff Wall from Canada, Melbourne duo Brown and Green and Janet Laurence from Sydney. 


I contacted Janet to talk to her about her materials and methods and consequently spent last weekend working with her to help get her latest exhibition ready for installation - opening night at Breenspace Gallery was last wednesday 22nd september. Although this particular installation was more of a collection of objects (it is a variation on the installation Janet created for the Sydney Biennale this year), very often her work comprises of printed images on glass or duratrans acrylic sheet. These are the works that I am interested in for this assignment.

Lyndall Brown and Charles Green are represented by Arc One Gallery in Melbourne

and a lot of the information I have found is from them.

Jeff Wall's work with illuminated images started before Duratrans and Duraclear were developed, but his work shares similar qualities with that of my other selected artists that make it very interesting to me. 

His more recent images, like this one from White Cube Gallery in London, are quite different to his earlier work, but still retain his intensity of vision.

http://www.janetlaurence.com/2010/04/the-sound-of-green/


ttp://arcone.com.au/index.php?navi=Artists&navj=Exhibition&aid=1&eid=267&navk=LYNDELL%20BROWN%20&%20CHARLES%20GREEN&awid=1929&name=How%20Nature%20Speaks&date=2010


http://www.whitecube.com/artists/wall/

Mutant Materials 5

Digiglass is another method of using digitally printed photographic images with glass.

Digiglass is also now being used as an element in architecture, particularly in public and commercial spaces such as the following:

Washington Hyatt Hotel

In this hotel huge laminated glass boxes have been constructed in the entry foyer with beautiful autumnal tree illustrations on them.

Digiglass has also been used to great effect in the architecture of this Melbourne school.

So, what is Digiglass.

As can be seen in the above illustration from Digiglass's website, this is a method of capturing a digital image between two layers of safety glass. 

This method can be used to produce artwork and illustrations that are suitable for commercial and architectural applications that need to withstand exterior weather conditions. The glass is specially toughened to suit the application and the inks used in the production of the image are uv resistant.

Janet Laurence is using Digiglass on an increasing basis as it is perfect for exterior installation works such as  

                             

                            Ghost Glasshouse 2003

                                            

                                          Ghost 2009

http://www.janetlaurence.com/2009/10/ghost-glasshouse/

http://www.janetlaurence.com/2009/11/ghost/


http://www.digiglass.com.au/

Mutant Materials 4

Duratrans and Duraclear


For the presentation I am going to concentrate on Duratrans and Duraclear. 
These are the trade names for the large format colour transparency film created by Kodak in 1979. 
The film was designed for making large backlit display transparencies for commercial applications - it is widely used in public places such as airports and train stations, shopping centres, fast food outlets, and public spaces for advertising and information purposes on a large scale.

http://www.leachcolour.com/Leach_retail/Pages/DuraTrans.html

http://www.signbuyer.co.uk/duratran-transparencies-2015-p.asp

http://www.spectrumfoto.com/printing.html

http://www.eacgs.com/products/duratran

The photographic image is reproduced from a negative onto a large format film that can then be applied to an acrylic substrate for support when being built into a lightbox.

The features of Duratrans and Duraclear are:

High resolution images at 300dpi for crisp edges and true colour.

Variable pixel size to ensure smooth colour transitions.

Higher colour saturation than with other processes.

Higher opacity black for crisper images.

Long pigment colour life than inkjet printing.

The following websites have got good information on the product.

http://duratrans.com/

http://duratrans.com/faq.php

http://www.visiongraphics.com.au/duratrans.php

http://www.bpconcepts.com.au/Content_Common/pg-Duratrans.seo

Mutant Materials 3

Frescography


Frescography* is a method of producing room-scale digital images that can be realised on paper, canvas or glass.
Murals are composed from a data bank of images that can be re-configured to suit the space and the required design and are then digitally printed. The technology uses CAM software programs such as Dreamworlds Design Studio**, Frescomaster and Artshop which are all capable of producing large scale images on wide format printers - most commonly the vutek*** printer.

*http://www.dreamworlds.com/frescography/
**http://www.frescography.com/
***http://www.efi.com/products/production/superwide/VUTEk/index_ad.asp?      gclid=CNrn5o2yg6QCFQ25bwodUwsuHg

Mutant Materials 2

Printing and glass, it seems to me, really goes back to the origins of photography. There has long been a tradition of painting on glass with stained glass windows, but with the advent of wet-plate collodion photography in the 1850's images could now be fixed to a glass plate and reproduced*. Until the photographic negative film was developed by Eastman Kodak in 1885 this was the best material for exposing images onto, and even then for many years, until the technology of film had improved, glass plates gave a better quality image.

But glass as a medium for printing has only really come into it's own since Harvey Littleton founded the Studio Glass movement in the early 1960's, so it is here that I will start my investigations into Print and Glass.
Littleton developed a process of using glass as an etching plate for print instead of metal which he termed "Viteography"**. The advantages of glass were many - the glass is inert and therefore doesn't react with the chemicals in the printing inks, the glass surface wipes more cleanly so sharper contrasts can be achieved, a glass plate will not warp or deteriorate with the pressure of the printing process - so the prints will remain consistant (although there is of course more danger of the plate actually breaking) and finally, the transparency of the glass allows for much easier registration of print layers. 
Many of the artists who have worked with the vitreographic process seem to be those involved in the studio glass movement in America, such as Dale Chihuly and Ann Wolff.

Dale Chihuly Venetians, 1994 Edition of 50 - APs only image: 30 x 22," paper size: 36 x 30" Ann Wolff My Dark Mother, 1984 Intaglio vitreograph on Arches, Edition of 50 image: 9.5 x 9.5," paper size: 16 x 15"

Despite these advantages though, vitreography has remained a niche method of producing prints - no doubt due to the fragility of the plates and the fact that alterations cannot be made once work on a plate has commenced. Also, the prints themselves are still produced on paper - the plate itself is not the work, which is really what I am interested in.


Next I will start to look at transparent and translucent print surfaces and what current techniques might be used for printing on them.


*http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/collodio.htm
  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eastman/sfeature/wetplate_step1.html
  http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/videoDetails?cat=2&segid=1726
**http://www.littletoncollection.com/Vitreography%20processes/vitreography_processes.htm

Mutant Materials 1

Ok, this is the start of my "Mutant Materials" assignment. 
For the assignment I'm going to look at current technologies in printing and how I might incorporate them into my work.
Printing on glass is a technique that I'm very interested in as a major component of my art work. So far, in terms of images, I have only just started with some basic manoeuvres in photoshop - I can do simple adjustments to my image, create CMYK separations and have a limited command of channels. When I join the Bachelor of Digital Media course at QCA next year I hope to markedly improve these skills in order to start producing the sort of images I really want to use in my work. Along with this, this assignment is an excellent opportunity to start investigating the kind of options that might be available for me to use in printing my work - while my initial focus is on printing glass, I am open to print combined with any transparent or translucent materials such as acetate or perspex. I am also open to different methods of producing the image - currently I am screen printing enamels and then firing them, but I expect my repertoire to expand depending on what I discover in my investigations.
So, where do I start?
Well, I shall start with the internet, that repository of all that is new and exciting and from there work out if there are journals or books I need to access. I will talk to people I know in the advertising and printing industries to find out what what technologies they might be using that could be of interest to me, I will look at contemporary artists who use print in their work and I will look at commercial printing.
Hopefully some interesting asides will be thrown up along the way.
Next stop - the internet!

Skull Etching

This week we have been learning how to create an etching. My skull is inspired by Callum and Wills obsession with them, I was so pleased with the result that I printed eight of them. Next week we will learn how to put tone and tint into them.

Latest Work

Here's my latest collection of wobbly blown glass tumblers. Believe it or not I am actually getting better at this and my next batch might even be straight.