Layering and Transparency
- llatham222
- Jan 9
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 28
I love the transparency of Japanese printmaking papers. When I print on certain thin papers with very light diluted watercolour I am able to place other elements behind the print to create double or multiple layers of imagery. These connect with some of the ideas of dual perception I have been exploring in my research. I have been using 'dud' prints to experiment with this in the studio.
Using nori paste as an adhesive, I stretched the printed Shoji paper over my lithograph print. The graphic black of the lithograph becomes a grey shadow beneath the thin abstract marks of the Japanese print. In this experiment I wasn't taking much consideration of the specific images, I was more interested in the quality of the technique. For me, it's useful to know that it works practically. It opens up ideas for photographs layered under prints, a possible physical interpretation of my digitally-layered photographs.
In a later workshop, in which I was introduced to photographic transfer, I tried to use the technique onto another trial woodcut print. The process involved printing the photograph onto acetate, then using hand-sanitiser gel to dissolve the photograph and transfer it onto the paper. The lines on the photograph occurred when the thin paper creased while I was rubbing the baren during the transfer process. Again, a very imperfect experiment, but I was interested to see Japanese print showing within the lighter sections of the photograph. I am increasingly seeking ways to bring the sharp reality of photographic imagery into the materiality of print.
The London-based artist Lucas Dupuy creates these mixed media works by layering inkjet photographs onto abstract gouache paintings. I'm inspired by the way the photographs appear to be situated on their own plane from the painted canvas. They aren't embedded or floating above the surface; they are their own surface. I would like to see these in real life to understand if this is the real effect.
Dupuy's book, titled 'Formless Anxiety' has a really intriguing sense of layering in these dusty photographic compositions in which figuration is placed within geometric shapes, marks and shadows. As in the mixed-media paintings, there are multiple planes of imagery which lean back and forth between photography and abstraction, giving us a sense of the 'formless anxiety' of the title. Again, I would love to see this in reality but I can't trace a copy.
In the same workshop as the photographic transfer, I tried applying a monoprint layer to an unrealised Japanese print on Shoji paper. The large 'rock' form doesn't work at all, but I like the way the lighter marks begin to delineate some perspective in the print. Another experiment in layering which might evoke some more painterly possibilities.
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