Monoprints

I’ve recently adopted “gelli printing” as my primary artwork technique. This involves creating a digital source and using a laser print as a mask to transfer acrylic paints onto a gelli plate. The plate can then be painted, manipulated and finally transferred to paper.

The technique is highly unpredictable, requiring experimentation with various factors like print strength, paint thickness, pressing hardness and drying length. These elements significantly impact the final result, which isn’t always perfect and often ends up with a grungy or broken quality.

For sources, I’ve always been drawn to randomness – making collages from books and magazines, and even literal stealing from the internet. I have mixed feelings about copyright and fair use. I believe original artists and owners should be paid and benefit from their work, but only up to a certain point. Interestingly, I think an obscure unknown artist should have no problem using samples from a famous artist, while the famous artist should compensate the unknown. However, in reality, the reverse often happens.

Now, with AI, there’s a lot of discussion about whether AI steals from artists. It does, but how much should the artist receive or how much is “ripping off”? That’s a debate worth having. I believe all art reflects the artist’s subconscious experiences. So, I use AI freely to generate source material, but only in part. That part would be equivalent to cutting from old books or grabbing from Google, and then the real artistic process begins. The elements are combined into a whole, printed, transferred and painted, with composition and colour choices.