Matthew Laurence

This is work #20 from the Urban Jungle series “Bangkok”. For this work I wanted to go back to using the Gelli art printing plates to create a tie-dye/marbleised process as the base to the background.

This is the original image captured and developed in Adobe Photoshop from some local vegetation in Singapore and graffiti captured within the region and city of Bangkok, Thailand.

This work was printed on a Epson 9800 large format printer at a size of 34″ x 44″. I then set a series of coats of matte varnish over the image element and then masked the photograph to then apply the background of mixed media.

I then added a layer of yellow acrylic paint to the background and laid out a series of Gelli plates with a range of darker colors to then be rolled on.

I then unraveled help rope to thin strands to then be placed over the Gelli plates after they are inked.

Once it is aligned and the hemp is laid out, the canvas with then be placed on top of the plates to be printed.

This is the first stage and now the edges and ends of the plates will be blended together.

I wiped away the paint from the mask to get a better view of the image element and how the background interacts with the foreground.

I applied an off-white layer of transparent color, then a tint of violet to soften the intensity and push the image element forward.

Stay tuned for the next set of updates to this work!