Transference: Transfer Printing and Contemporary Ceramics
Transference explores how the combination of ceramics and transfer print technology enables the immediacy of printmaking to be joined with the enduring nature of fired clay. The title of this project refers to the transferring of social and political concepts between cultures and across time periods. Soon after its development in mid-18th Century England, transfer printing became the pop art of its time, commemorating everything from the launch of ships to historic sites and landscapes. Artists used the print technique to decorate plates, bowls, teapots, and vases in order to spread popular imagery and patterns around the globe. By the time the process hit the U.S., the prints expanded to include cultural and political events and themes, such as vistas of the American landscape, the Liberty Bell, and the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. For ceramic artists in the US and UK, transfer ware has become a ubiquitous aspect of our collective material heritage.
Today, contemporary artists are mining this historic process and mixing new digital techniques to create work that responds to the immediacy of our modern world, whether politically, socially, or culturally. The interdisciplinary nature of much contemporary art being made today is reflected in the process. Artists use everything from traditional intaglio printing methods to modern technology to make prints that are immediate, personal, digitized, and/or imbued with historic references. The combination of historic process with contemporary ideas and design continues to result in dynamic, thoughtful works of art that resonate through the fields of art, design, history, and technology.
Current transfer print artists experiment with alchemy and juxtaposition, pushing the boundaries of the process to make innovative contemporary art. Transference will showcase a range of practices from traditional to the most advanced type of 3-D printing available today, and everything in between. Participating artists have been selected to include a wide range of techniques and concepts explored in the work. Andrew Raftery鈥檚 work is made using precise traditional methods, while while Paul Scott commemorates the Fukushima disaster.
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Transference explores how the combination of ceramics and transfer print technology enables the immediacy of printmaking to be joined with the enduring nature of fired clay. The title of this project refers to the transferring of social and political concepts between cultures and across time periods. Soon after its development in mid-18th Century England, transfer printing became the pop art of its time, commemorating everything from the launch of ships to historic sites and landscapes. Artists used the print technique to decorate plates, bowls, teapots, and vases in order to spread popular imagery and patterns around the globe. By the time the process hit the U.S., the prints expanded to include cultural and political events and themes, such as vistas of the American landscape, the Liberty Bell, and the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. For ceramic artists in the US and UK, transfer ware has become a ubiquitous aspect of our collective material heritage.
Today, contemporary artists are mining this historic process and mixing new digital techniques to create work that responds to the immediacy of our modern world, whether politically, socially, or culturally. The interdisciplinary nature of much contemporary art being made today is reflected in the process. Artists use everything from traditional intaglio printing methods to modern technology to make prints that are immediate, personal, digitized, and/or imbued with historic references. The combination of historic process with contemporary ideas and design continues to result in dynamic, thoughtful works of art that resonate through the fields of art, design, history, and technology.
Current transfer print artists experiment with alchemy and juxtaposition, pushing the boundaries of the process to make innovative contemporary art. Transference will showcase a range of practices from traditional to the most advanced type of 3-D printing available today, and everything in between. Participating artists have been selected to include a wide range of techniques and concepts explored in the work. Andrew Raftery鈥檚 work is made using precise traditional methods, while while Paul Scott commemorates the Fukushima disaster.
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