BIG emotion [artist]

Print Action, Feb 2005 by Robinson, Jon

Large-format printing continues to be an attractive option in the graphic communications industry. There is a relatively low-cost of entry into the market, production can earn 10 per cent of the total media buy, and application innovation is only limited by the imagination. But the marketplace should not be taken lightly. The digital production market is already price competitive and super-wide lithographic presses cost millions. In addition to a listing of 100-plus large-format, digital engines and the latest substrates, we spoke with three of Canada's leading large-format printers to bring some clarity to this involved business. Adbusters, Kalle Lasn provides a new vision of capitalism through large format, while artist Ken Danby shares unique views on screen-printing, technology and creativity.

"As an artist, I have reached toward a technological capacity to create a whole new element of printmaking."

- Ken Danby

Artist David Hockney caused a stir in 1999 when he publicly introduced a controversial theory that the great artists of the early Renaissance period used optics to complete their masterpieces. He believes technology like the camera obscura or concave mirrors projected scenes onto their canvases for tracing. Proof for the theory, Hockney says, comes from the sudden emergence of more realistic painting in the early 15th century. His theory suggests these artists were using optics well before scientific minds had even invented telescopes and microscopes, which arrived in the 1590s.

"I HAVE NO DOUBT," replies Canadian artist Ken Danby, when asked if he thinks Hockney is right, even as many leaders of the art community rebuke what they perceive to be an unsubstantiated accusation of cheating. "There is a real perception that artists should not use technology. That artists should stand up in the field and fight the wind and the mosquitoes and paint, instead of utilizing whatever means they have at their disposal."

The movement to prove Hockney wrong is led by theologians, electrical engineers, optics researchers, professors, even a physicist who is measuring distortions in the paintings to preclude the use of optics. Hockney fires back by suggesting that any kink found in a Renaissance masterpiece was likely caused by the optics falling out of focus. As a realist painter himself, Danby is one of Canada's most revered living artists, best know for his now iconic 1972 painting At the Crease.

A day before the painting was to be exhibited for the first time, Fred Eaton, one of the four brothers who controlled Baton's department store, was in the gallery and purchased it before the show could open. The piece is still a part of this private collection. Since that day, At the Crease has taken Danby on an interesting ride along reproduction, technology and creativity.

"The artist wants to work beyond the technology. It's simply a tool that is going to be an advantage," says Danby, arguing that new technology has always been used to create works of art. "Like the whole business of using a computer. A computer is simply a tool. It is the creative achievement that uses a computer."

Screen innovation

As the typical young, struggling artist, Danby in the 1970s set out to find the best way to create an original image in multiple forms. He investigated linocuts, woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, serigraphs, every kind of handmade, large-format print process that would enable him to create an original print that could be sold by the thousands. He found himself buying the necessary equipment to build a large-format, silk-screen studio. He had an ambitious idea to mesh creativity with technology.

Creating a painting from start to finish is naturally a process of trial and error. Because of the potentially unlimited number of stages an artist can go through to create a work of art, most would never begin screen printing until they were 99 per cent sure of the final piece. It would be mapped out in their mind, broken down by how many stages it would take to create a screen of that image.

Danby, on the other hand, allowed the screen-printing process to lead his creativity. "As an artist, I have reached toward a technological capacity to create a whole new element of printmaking." Without any preplanning, Danby's trial and error happened as he was deciding how the image might take shape, usually based on how many colours were needed. He printed a piece of paper each time he made a change. He would then take this paper proof, set it on a board, apply a piece of acetate to it and create another drawing.

"I would have to draw the colour on it in I black ink in order to make the stencil," remembers Danby. "That was the tricky part - mental juggling." In effect, he was forcing himself to test and test and test again until he found the right colour. "A lot of labour and 33, 34, 35 colours later, I have an originally created work of art in a multiple form that is beyond any reproductive capacity to achieve. I am working directly as an artist with the inks. I am not allowing any technology of reproduction."