New Jo de Pear Collectors' Print Sets
Launching on 19 November are 4 new exclusive collectors print sets of Jo de Pear's popular 'Decanters' series.
British Printmaker Jo de Pear has for many years worked with an archive of family heirlooms with her work – previous collections have centred on her predecessors’ silver cutlery and antique lace. Over the past few years Jo has been working with the cyanotype process in the sunshine of Antigua, making striking graphic prints from the island’s rich flora and fauna.
As a consummate printmaker it was a natural progression to use the cyanotype process to experiment with the antique cut glass decanters and other glassware – taken to Antigua from London piece by piece. The results of these experiments have revealed a beautiful contrast of shadow and light and their beauty is the resulting clarity of line and tone. The ghost like shadows provide strong graphic images as well as capturing a bygone era with a strong contemporary twist.
The initial experiments and resulting prints have been successful and have now mostly sold. Due to the travel restrictions due to Covid this year and Jo unable to travel to Antigua, this led her to go back in to the print room in London and experiment with photopolymer plates
in order to reproduce the very strongest original cyanotypes in a different print process.
This has enabled her to produce this exclusive limited edition of prints using both cyanotype process blue and then pushing the boundaries further and experimenting with a new colour ochre.
Over the past few weeks Jo has worked hard in the print room as each print is individually hand inked, wiped, polished with tissue paper to enhance the whites and taken through an etching press by hand. These are then dried for weeks under boards to keep the paper flat. The results are these fantastic collectors sets of prints, each unique in the sense that they are all hand printed but available at a really accessible price.
You can view all of Jo de Pear's new works and earlier works here: