MONOTYPES, ETCHINGS & LITHOGRAPHY

Reproduction is a natural desire. Also in art.

It all started with monotypes, which are a kind of prints. Wanting less control, this technique gave me the advantage of a kind of co-incidental co-operation with that which wanted to present itself.

The idea of drawing on a copper plate and acid baths inspired the alchemyst facet of my being. These were real prints. And for real prints, one needs a press, so I enrolled in the eveningclasses intaglio printing at the Academy of Antwerp. I started working on zinc and didn’t care about real edition of prints. So I often printed only one copy or at best a few, and this in a very “artistic” manner.

This changed when master-printmaker René Tazé accepted me as an apprentice in his Parisian studio. He urged me to use copper, even steel-facing it. There I learned how to obtain the same result with every print from the same plate, and also how to print with “chine collé”, a semi-forgotten technique of printing on a very thin Japanese paper that is glued to a carrier paper. I worked on copper and used a special formula of Dutch Mordant to etch my plates. I met many other “graveurs” like Mohlitz, Houtin, Desmazières, Trignac, Czech, Doaré,...but it wasn’t until I met Velly that I found someone who used a similar acid-bath. René Tazé , Jean-Pierre and me, we discussed about biting techniques, aquatinta,...everything a printmaker likes, needs and gets obsessed with.

A few years later though, I found printing too cumbersome and longed for something more direct. So it faded away...

O, and what about what people nowadays call "prints" ? Digital prints, limited editions, giclee's etc? These have got nothing whatsoever to do with art prints. They can be compared with high-quality postcards and posters with this difference that the number of prints is limited by the need. So-called "Limited Editions" are fake as an infinate number can be printed without any wear, and all are unhumanly identical. Giclee is a non-defined word, and no guarantee for quality. I have got nothing against ink-jet prints, far from, but to me it would be more fair if people would call them "digital reproductions" so they could be clearly distinguished from engravings, etchings, woodcuts and lithographs. We all remember how Dali's "limited editions" of lithographs killed the medium...