The Surface within Digital Prints-Objects and Journeys
Professor Paul Coldwell
Lecture presented at the British Council, Seoul, Korea, June 2008.
I am an artist who works with both sculpture and print and for the last 14 years I have used the computer as a tool in my printmaking to develop new images. One of the key questions that I have asked myself is how does the computer affect my relationship to the physical quality of my artworks and how can it be used as an expressive tool to explore the fundamental ideas behind my work. ; ideas of loss, journeys and how we relate and place meaning onto familiar objects. The reason I am in Seoul is to stage an exhibition of my prints at Andante Gallery and I do hope you will have time to see the exhibition. This is the second time I have shown in Seoul, the first time being in 2004 in a group show with EWHA Womans University, Beyond the digital surface.
I want to begin with some early works, before I used the computer. I want to show these because I hope it will enable you to see how the themes in my work are constant, irrespective of the computer. The computer is one of many tools that I use in making images but it s my imagination that is behind the images. These early works try to weave elements together as if piecing together the fragments of a life. Our lives are composed of many different things, different responsibilities, and different anxieties, and I try to suggest the way these are held together in our lives. Suitcases, chairs, frames are common elements in my work, both in the sculptures and prints. These objects can be seen to represent concepts, so for example the suitcase might suggest travel or migration, while the picture frame might suggest family photographs or ones ancestors. I want them to begin to suggest a person or a life by the things that surround them.
When I began to use the computer, I wanted to extend the way I wove elements together in drawing. The computer is ideal for collage and cut & paste. It also allows me to play with changes of scale as you can se wit the way the fingerprint is enlarged. This first series of prints entitled, My father’s coat, was a way of looking at identity and memories about my own father. The fingerprint is probably the most obvious way to suggest an individual. The images were worked on using the vector programme, illustrator and then transferred onto etching plates and etched. These two prints were very deeply etched and then surface rolled and printed as if they were woodcuts. So here these images have both bee made using21st century computer software and 14th century etching.
In these prints, which followed, entitled Domestic conflicts, I started to use the programme Photoshop and wanted to create a shallow space. Once again the objects are simple everyday objects and I began to incorporate my sculptures into the prints as you can see here where the image f the house is taken from a large wooden sculpture that I had made. The surface of these prints is more like a photograph, a window to look through. I began to also get interested in the half tone dot as a screen through which to look through. In traditional print processes, the way a photograph would be translated into an image, which could be printed, was through half tone, as we all know from looking at a newspaper photographs. I found that through using the half tone dot in the computer I was able to modify each individual dot and really treat the photograph with as much fluidity as if it were a drawing. Of course this really focused my attention on what was happening across the surface. When a photograph is transferred in the computer, either directly or through scanning, it is changed. An analogue photograph is one moment in time that has been captured and chemically printed. It is a set of fixed relationships. Of course you can make the whole picture, lighter or darker, change the contrast, but generally to have to treat the image as a whole. It carries with it an idea that this is a true record of an instant in time. A digital photograph is completely different. Each pixel can be changed so it no longer is about truth. A digital photograph can be transformed with a much freedom s if it were a drawing.
This interest in surface extended to a more experimental piece I made for an exhibition, Digital Responses at the V&A museum, London. Here I used highly polished spoons and had a small digital camera record the reflections as the viewer looked into the spoons. The viewer was captured in the act of looking and their image presented on screen as if captured by a security camera.
All my work uses everyday objects. The kind of familiar objects that we take for granted and yet accompanies us through our personal journey. In this set of prints Means of Escape I wanted to make a series of prints that would both work individually and as a series. These prints record an imaged journey. The were developed on the computer and then made into 4 colour lithographs with then a final layer, the dots printed as relief, pressed and embossed into the surface. Here the first print suggests the beginning of a journey. A glass of water, an alarm clock and a picture perhaps of the destination. Is this journey a holiday or something more menacing? I leave this to the viewer. To go on a journey you need a bag, you need means of transport, you need to prepare yourself and iron your clothes and the last print suggests that you have arrived. This set you can see at andante.
These prints led me again to make objects, here a group of everyday objects cast using Korean paper. These are like three dimensional still life drawings. As you can see, these sculpture were then photographed and worked on in the computer to produce a series entitled Constellations. Here, the surface once again became an important element as I took individual dots from surface of the half tone, enlarged them and by joining them together formed a drawing like a constellation. I wanted to suggest the importance of imagination and how the mind can view things and imagine new possibilities. So instead of peering into the sky to image the constellations, I am looking at the surface of my prints instead. These prints were made as digital prints using archival inks on fine art paper. Here you see my imagined constellations, the constellation of the boat, the suitcase, the shoe and here I have left it for the viewer to join the dots and find their own image.
After this series I made this set of 3 prints that although made on the computer were finally printed as collotypes. These continue the idea of constellations but here from a sadder viewpoint. These took an image of the bombing of Iraq, which was broadcast on TV news and juxtaposed drawings of a bent coat hanger, a broken pair of glasses and a bouquet of flowers. We were led to believe that all these bombs falling on Baghdad only destroyed buildings. In a simply way I wanted to remind the viewer of the reality of the loss of human life.
Flowers have a special role in our lives. We bring them to celebrate, life, death, special occasion and achievements. They are symbols of comemeration and memory. In these digital prints I juxtaposed mountains with flowers. I wanted to suggest how mountains are both something that we use to test ourselves, mountaineers risk their lives to take up this challenge, but also throughout history, people have had to risk crossing mountains to achieve freedom or escape tyranny. I am aware of the importance attached to mountain in Korea so perhaps these prints will speak directly to you. In these prints the colour of the flowers is drawn from the colour of the original photographs of mountains. Its as if the surface of the prints has been cleaned away to reveal the colour underneath. In this print the flowers become bigger than the landscape itself, but once again drawn as if by joining dots together. I further developed these ideas n these small photo etchings, now juxtaposing the flowers with old shoes, a memory of past lives.
In keeping with my practice, I keep a dialogue between the sculptures and prints, both inform and influence each other. Here are two small bronze sculptures that interpret objects as three dimension drawings as if they are containers or trying to capture something that has past. The objects have been drawn in three dimensions using wax, which has then been cast into bronze. While this are on one level about still life and objects, I would like the viewer to imagine human relationships and family groups.
The simple linear drawing is then developed into these new screen prints, once again developed on screen through the computer. I wanted to keep the sense of simply linear drawing but also retain the sense of layering that was important in the way these images were made. Once again the images are ambivalent. The book, envelope and suitcase are universal images but we all bring our own associations. These are juxtaposed with images derived from landscape, mountains, railway track and the sky seen through trees. Are these journeys depicted, forced journeys or for leisure and adventure? I leave it o the viewer to bring their opinion. I also want the viewer to have to work at looking at these pictures. I hope you will go to se them at andante. When you get close, it is very difficult to read the background, it becomes a mass of dots, but you can read the drawing. As you step back, in order to read the background you must release your focus on the drawing. My intention is that the viewer reforms the picture in their mind bringing together the memory of both the landscape and the object.
Here, in these digital prints made for an exhibition at Kettle’s Yard Cambridge, I have tried to imagine, firstly some of the personal possessions of the owner, his shaving brush, his comb, etc while in the next, it is some of his clothes, jacket, shoes etc. In both cases the idea is that the viewer has to try to find the objects as if in a children’s game. These objects are partly concealed within the overall surface of the print and the photograph of trees. The objects are found in the spaces between the branches as if man and nature are locked together. It is easy to think that using the computer makes things easier. I don’t find this at all. I spend sometimes months on my digital prints, changing and modifying each part until it feels right. I am continually making trial prints to se how they look and make sure the scale and size is right. These prints are made by me, not the computer. The computer is my tool but I have to be in control. When the print is finally completed, decide on the exact paper, the each size and supervise the printing with as much care as if I were making a traditional print using woodcut or screen-print.
Thought-out all my work, the idea of surface and what ideas are contained within the surface are pressing concerns. Whether working digitally or otherwise these ideas come to the fore.
I would like to sincerely thank
The British Council for arranging this lecture.
The University of the Arts London for supporting my trip to Korea and the AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) for supporting my current research.
