More Experiments in Layering: Coloured Perspex

Inspired by some of my colourful photographic edits, I bought some samples of coloured perspex to see how they would interact with my dark aquatint prints. I became really excited by the coloured glow that forms around the edge of the perspex, which subtly illuminates the frame of the print.

Aquatint print behind yellow perspex

Aquatint print behind layered yellow and pink perspex

Aquatint print, yellow perspex 'shelf'

Aquatint prints, coloured perspex. Imagining perspex as pages of a book

As I approach the pop-up show in December, I have increasingly been considering display and framing, and considering how I might use coloured perspex in my work. Reliquaries are described as 'frames' by Cynthia Hahn in her 2017 book The Reliquary Effect. She writes: 'the reliquary is better defined as a space containing the ineffable; a never defined by confining container, a shapeless but also shapely frame' (Hahn, 2017 p.14)

Paul Thek, Untitled. Wax, paint, polymer resin, nylon monofilament, wire, plaster, plywood, melamine laminate, rhodium-plated bronze, and acrylic. 35.6 x 38.3 x 19.1cm (1966)

The artist Paul Thek, in his series of artworks entitled 'Technological Relics', presents an Untitled wax sculpture enshrined within a neon acrylic box. In this work, the container serves to obscure our vision of the object inside. Thek is quoted in Paul Thek: Artist's Artist: 'It's almost impossible to tell what's inside unless the viewer has his nose to the glass. They're ambiguous; they can't be seen all at once' (Falkenberg, H and Weibel, P. 2009).

The brash colour also lends an unpleasant power to the object that is both clinical and unclean. Thek refers to this jarring contrast in the same publication: ‘The dissonance of the two surfaces, glass and wax, pleases me: one is clear and shiny and hard, the other is soft and slimy…’. This resonates with Hahn's comparison in The Reliquary Effect between the 'oldness of the relic and the shiny new-ness of the reliquary' (Hahn, 2017. p.9).

There is something pleasing to me about the solid blackness of the print and the soft coloured luminosity of the perspex. I am also excited by the solid edge of the perspex when seen from the side. This edge; its luminosity and both transparent and reflective qualities make me confident that I will use this material in future works.