An exhibition of contemporary artists from all over the world coming together to show how old fashioned type is brought back in to our every day use at the Standpoint Gallery. All works confined in a small two room gallery space really came together, as most prints were small to medium size and not the standard paper shape they were thoughtfully scattered around the gallery's walls. I really enjoyed observing the works piece by piece, trying to figure out what methods were being used. There were no labels indicating printing methods, I guess the artists wanted it to turn in to an interactive display so viewers took time to notice and examine.
Most artists have used letterpress and screen printing as their main technique some merged lino cutting and digital print into their works. I thought Team Nerd and Prensa La Libertad had the most successful pieces, primarily because they had interesting combinations of printing techniques as well as blending typography and colour. The idea that this exhibition was based on was clearly shown by all the pieces, we see letterpress and other print methods being introduced in to posters and advertising campaigns everyday.
I was amazed by how this simple old craft method has been around for centuries and yet it is only being re-born now, every single letter looked perfect even if it wasn't filled completely with ink. With all the new printing technology it is easy to forget how precious the manually printed pieces can look. This exhibition has inspired me to begin using letterpress in my own work, I hope to one day produce pieces as high quality as these!
About
I am a current student at University of East London, studying Graphic Design and Printmaking. Art has been my passion ever since I discovered a pencil. I can’t place myself to a specific genre but if I absolutely had to it would be somewhere in between Graphic Design and Illustration. As a young artist I am still trying to define my style of work, so far I would describe it as accurate and delicate. I like to take great care of each piece and make sure it is produced to high quality or else it is not worth exposing to the world, I am definitely a perfectionist when it comes to my own work. Living in digital age it is hard to ignore all the amazing software, however I believe that handmade pieces are so much more valuable and precious compared to digital. It takes great determination to producing a handmade piece, making unintentional mistakes part of the work often leads to uniqueness, such work cannot be re produced which makes it very admirable. I guess I try to re bell against all the brand new techniques on purpose, because I like spending time on solving problems that could be corrected in no time on computer software. I get my inspiration from quite literally everywhere
Tuesday
Reverting to Type
Posted by Julia Baranova at 8:34 AM