Dongsoo Kim, managing director of InkTec Europe, explains how the company is collaborating with artists like Jeffrey Kroll to take wide-format print into the fine art sphere.
Recognising the quality, detail and colour tone required in creating fine art, InkTec is increasingly becoming involved in this interesting and diverse sector. Critical to its approach has been harnessing all of the knowledge and expertise gained from manufacturing Jetrix printers, inkjet ink and media, and actively taking this in-depth familiarity of printing into the realms of fine art. Initially this has centred on developing an association with New York born artist Jeffrey Kroll. The outcome of which is a ground-breaking exhibition at the Mead Carney Fine Art Gallery in Mayfair, London, presented alongside Samsung, which opened on 23 September and runs until 4 October 2014.
The distinctive ‘Strata’ exhibition, demonstrates what is a unique process of integrating mobile photography and painting with wide-format printing, welding all of these specialisms to create works of fine art.
The ‘Strata’ works by Kroll are considered a visual drama, revealing a subtle and deceptive interaction of painted and digital space. HIs technique is all about layer building. Firstly he creates a picture, then an image of it is taken using a Samsung device and the digital file is compressed. The initial image is then printed via a wide-format Jetrix printer on the highest grade of primed fine art canvas, with the primary image maintained and used as a base and template to further develop increasingly more complex layers of interpretive paint.
The result of this intricate process is a completely original work of art, marrying a variety of media and that demonstrates the fine detail ability of what the Jetrix printer can produce. Kroll has already been impressed, saying: “The wide range of materials that you can print on using the Jetrix UV flatbed digital printer is vast. I am already planning my next Jetrix project and looking forward to exploring the full capability of the machine and what it can achieve.”
As Dongsoo Kim, managing director of InkTec Europe, highlights: “The concept of the exhibition incorporates everything that InkTec wants to demonstrate that can be achieved with a Jetrix printer - including the precision, detail and quality required to reproduce the intensity and beauty of fine art.”
In addition, Kim believes that “this exhibition is a spring-board for InkTec and Jetrix in educating and broadening awareness in the creative market about the potential of wide-format printing for the fine art sector. We are hoping to use this event as an opportunity to open the door to people thinking differently about what wide-format printing can bring. It is all about moving perceptions of wide-format printing from sign-making to creating art.”
As the first ever fine art exhibition to use this innovative technique, it is Kroll’s intention that in a world flooded with digital reproduction, that the ‘Strata’ pieces will take the digital format and bring it under the control of the artist. This sentiment is mirrored by American printmaker, Ken Tyler, who has worked with artists from Lichtenstein to Hockney and has exhibited at the Tate Modern and was quoted recently as saying: “The marriage of new technology and ideas with art techniques ancient as civilisation itself; this is a dichotomy ideal for artistic collaborations. The art business isn’t doing enough to celebrate and combine the technology of digital imagery with the power of the human hand. Yet there are great possibilities, maybe even the greatest artistic opportunities lie ahead.”
From InkTec’s perspective, the company is seeking to build on the momentum of the ‘Strata’ exhibition to broaden awareness of the flexibilities of wide-format printers, and specifically the Jetrix range of flatbed UV digital printers. This will form a key part of marketing initiatives directed at the creative sector, from demonstrations at the dedicated InkTec demo suite in Witney, industry events and exhibitions through to social media, website and working with resellers to illustrate what the Jetrix print range can achieve outside of the traditional perceptions of sign making.
Kroll himself says: “Jetrix printers are the world’s most advanced flatbed UV digital printers, demonstrated by their ability to provide the highest quality and precision to even the finest of details.” One more creative using wide-format print...
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