The Painterly in Deep Print at the Kastrupgårdsamlingen Museum, Denmark
The Painterly in Deep Print at the Kastrupgårdsamlingen Museum, Denmark.
March 26 - June 22, 2025
Installation view, Kastrupgårdsamlingen, Denmark.
Courtesy of Printer's Proof, Copenhagen
The Painterly in Deep Print highlights the significant achievements of Printer's Proof, a Copenhagen-based intaglio print studio and publisher of contemporary etchings and works on paper, established in 2013.
Many museum-goers are unaware that producing a print involves three interactive and creative forces: the artist, the publisher and the master printer. It is the efforts of adventurous publishers and printers that facilitate innovative and experimental prints. Printer's Proof serves both as the publisher, inviting artists to create work on paper, and as the printer, offering technical solutions for plate work and printing through its intimate knowledge of the craft. Many artists invited to the studio by Printer's Proof, did not have any prior experience with the medium and undertook their first printmaking projects at the studio's suggestion. The studio's openness to innovative and experimental uses of printmaking media has led to numerous collaborations with painters.
Specialising in deep print, Printer's Proof has contributed to the revival of techniques such as etching, which many associate with the black-and-white small-scale images of Rembrandt and Picasso. Invented around 1500, etching has been going in and out of favour. By embracing the challenges of working with this labour-intensive medium, Printer's Proof has played a vital role in reviving this 'old master' technique and stimulating interest in deep print. Printer's Proof has expanded its technical repertoire from one project to the next to meet the challenges posed by the artists' visions. Printer's Proof’s technical bravura and skill has breathed new life into this 500-year- old technique.
None of the seven artists featured in The Painterly in Deep Print had worked with deep print prior to their invitation from Printer's Proof. Those with prior printmaking experience had never attempted etching. These fruitful collaborations allowed Printer's Proof to transcend the limitations imposed by the medium and enabled the artists to broaden their creative sensibilities. Together, Printer's Proof and the artists pushed deep print beyond the traditional boundaries of painting and printmaking. As the exhibition title suggests, Ruth Campau (b. 1955, DK), Julie Sass (b. 1971, DK), Erin Lawlor (b. 1969, UK), Liat Yossifor (b. 1974, USA), Agathe de Bailliencourt (b. 1974, FR), and Birk Bjørlo (b. 1986, NO) employed painterly printing techniques in their projects. The creative freedom allowed these painters to expand their creative sensibilities, giving them the opportunity to acquire a larger view of their own practice. None of the artists used printmaking as a repetition of previously resolved compositions; on the contrary it allowed them to achieve a further evolution of their style. In specific cases it even helped the artists in question to precede rather than follow the execution of paintings.
A printmaking project is divided into phases, beginning with the artist's intervention on a matrix, whether it’s copper, zinc, or any other material. The immediate contact is between the artist and the artistic support, rather than between the artist and the paper. The paper records the artist's actions through the intervention of the printer, who etches the plate and subsequently learns by heart all its marks and indentations in order to wipe off the excess ink with an intense yet sensitive movement of their hand. The collaborative nature of printmaking allows artists who lack technical skills to avail themselves of the printer's professional know-how, which becomes thus their extension in printmaking. With its immediacy, freshness, and directness the resulting artwork represents a perfect union between the artist, printer, and media.
The works for The Painterly in Deep Print were created over the past seven years, bringing artists from the Scandinavia, USA, UK and Germany to Copenhagen for their realisation. They demonstrate that deep print can be large in scale, colourful, and can employ painterly techniques that help artists explore the aesthetic and expressive potential of their oeuvre.