Notes on the screen prints

Introduction
  The folio of prints Springtime on Saturn was made at a college where I taught printmaking. The printmaking room was very well equipped and I felt it would be a shame not to use it for my own work.

  The restrictions this placed on the prints were: Size; The image was to be A3 which was the standard film size we used and also plan press storage was limited. Speed; These prints were made between classes so it was essential that a colour be printed quickly, the screen cleaned, drying racks cleared before another group appeared.

Method
  I had previously employed a rather graphic style [Straw Hut] which was based on flat colours using an elaborate collaging of photographic and hand drawn elements on acetate sheets from which the photographic stencil was produced. This would be repeated for every colour and was too time consuming for the circumstances. The solution was to work with one, or at most two stencils made from an unedited bromide image. Sections of the stencil could be masked with block out or paper and colours multiplied by rapid overprinting.

   I wanted to find an alternative to the harsh graphic look commonly associated with screen prints. The solution was to make the stencil with quite a fine dot and print on water colour paper, the absorption of the paper and the very thin ink meant that the dots bled into the surface and fine detail was destroyed. Small quantities of pearl lustre, copper or graphite powder mixed in with the colours added to the already optically elusive quality.

  The use of a computer also made a debut with this work. Several of the prints have a background made with the little paint programme that came with the Apple 2, the one bit images were printed on a dot matrix printer and composited on bromide film later.

Imagery
  The images are derived from a moody 1950's Hollywood Film Noir Cape Fear. The movie has an ominous shadowy visual style that translates into still images with an mysterious, ambiguous quality. The breakdown of image resolution that accompanies each step of the reproduction process was deliberately encouraged to enhance these qualities.

The images follow a sequence of a woman rising, alone and then a man appears, they look at each other and the final image verges on entropy. The title Springtime on Saturn refers to the saturnine or melancholic temperament where ironically there is no spring. The figures are isolated and watchful.

  If you look at the collages Observer Opening Data you will notice chopped up leftover prints or re-used a photo stencil in Ice.

Appropriation or quotation?
  I suppose the admission that my work has been based on or borrowed from images produced by popular culture would seem like putting my hand up to piracy. These days of ubiquitous computers, of easy reproduction and corporate zealousness in pursuing copyright infractions has upped the paranoia level.

  I recall that in the 1970's Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg ran foul of a copyright owner of the newspaper images that he liked to use in his collages and screen prints. I don't recall the upshot but it was a sobering reminder that art is not exempt from corporate vengefulness. Artists can become victims of misuse of their own work too but are unlikely to have the resources to do much about it.

  It's a problematic area but I think our culture would be poorer if artists are not given the latitude of some sort of fair use. In fact it could enhance the status of the original product, look what Andy Warhol did for Campbell's Soup.