Conversation between Paul Coldwell and Kathy Prendergast,
Chelsea College of Art & Design,
11th Feb. 2009
Paul Coldwell It’s been fascinating to watch how you have developed this print “Mt Fuji”. It seems like an ongoing process, and at each stage where many artists would see a conclusion, you see a fresh starting point.
Kathy Prendergast When I came to the project I had initially the starting point of a contour map of mt Fuji but over time this has then became integrated with an image downloaded from the internet of cherry blossom. But what has happened is now to do with my relationship with the computer. The image I downloaded from the internet was very low resolution and I had to draw on to get rid of the pixels, so it would marry with the contour drawing of mt Fuji. It was this constant working between foreground and background, to get them to work together. I had thought I had finished and then realised through talking with Jonathan Kearney that through the technology I could turn the cherry blossom into a contour map. So today, Jonathan and I have been mapping the cherry blossom and I now have two contour maps, this one of the cherry blossom and the map of mt Fuji.
PC So in terms of the layers and the surface, you are working both below and above?
KP And also going from the computer, to printout, to then drawing on that printout, re scanning that and then back into the computer. So it’s both about this layering through the computer as well as combining it with the hand drawn. The physically drawn image in contrast to the digitally drawn line. Now I can’t think what’s digitally drawn and what is hand drawn. I used to think that the computer just couldn’t get the quality of the hand drawn but now I’m not so sure.
PC Your working method sounds like a battle to achieve equilibrium, between the hand drawn and the computer generated line.
KP I don’t see it as a battle. I started with the contour map of mt Fuji that was down loaded from the Internet in the first place. I painted onto that so its now a physical thing, its scanned, back into the computer, then its overlaid with another image from the internet, the cherry blossom. This print is then painting or drawn. The whole process is a way of establishing a relationship with the computer.
PC Is its also about making the virtual real in order for you to engage with it? The surface could be seen as a membrane that you are continuously passing through?
KP Exactly. Also you have to make the image so it does seem like the surface but in fact it’s underneath the surface. The problem I had initially with the cherry blossom was it was too much on the surface. And it needed to be drawn in a style between the hand drawn and the computer to make it work.
PC In a way you are very much working with process through the computer and processes which allow you to both relinquish control and regain control at a later point. There’s this oscillation between control and loss, which we also have, in traditional sculptural and printmaking practices where we are also used to the idea of transformation through process.
KP I’m pleased that I haven’t given up on my drawing and just relinquished myself to the computer. Each time I’ve come to work on the print it changes in fact what I am ending up with is so much more than I had envisaged.
PC You work on the prints here at Chelsea on the computer, take home proofs, work onto them in your studio. Through working directly on the proofs, you act on each area in a very particular way.
KP Yes but also when that is scanned, its no longer the drawing, it a pixalated version. So I see my drawing in a totally different way and I then have to treat it in a very different way. For example when I water-coloured to cover up areas that were too pixelated, we were able to make outlines of the watercolour, turning that into a contour map. So was I mapping my drawing, or was I mapping the Internet image?
But most importantly I’m interested in the emotional quality of my drawing and how that can be retained and intensified.
PC When something is either drawn on or scanned into the computer its data, no bit of the image is any better or worst than the next…
KP … exactly…
PC …and this enables the artist to step back and view the image with a detached gaze.
KP And there’s something very healthy about that. Also when you select areas and change them, you are never quite sure what’s going to happen, so for me I have to rely on my instinct as to whether its right or not. And you can go back.
PC But you haven’t tended t do that. You seem to move forward reacting to each stage as a starting point
KP That right. Well in this last stage, I think it’s the last stage; I’ve got the outline drawing of the cherry blossom image I got from the Internet. I’ll now treat that in exactly the same way as the contour map of mt Fuji, where I painted in ink every contour. So if I scan that drawing I’ve come full circle and I think that will then be the end.
PC So you have set out on a course and responded to things as they occur but you don’t go backwards, you resolve it by action.
KP I think that’s because each stage on the computer, there’s something unexpected, so we start changing things.
PC You’ve had this relationship between the screen, the scanner, the printer and the actual print. each of them representing different ways of looking. The screen depends on its resolution and it is illuminated, the scanner acts like a camera interogating a surface, the print depends of reflect light from the paper.
KP That’s right and the process of making this print been very physical which surprised me. Its not what I had anticipated.
PC Thank you
