Rupert Wood // Number Cut Out 8-0 BLUE

50x35cm
4-colours hand-pulled screenprint
Keaycolour Claywhite Recycled 285gsm
Edition of 10
Signed, Numbered and embossed

Design Tip: There are 4 colourways in each of 2 designs: create sets by pairing within the colourways, or have a full set of each design in all the colours...

"The Number Cut Outs is a group of eight prints from 2 designs which are inspired by a series of 1968 screen prints by the Yorkshire painter John Langton which we acquired to sell in 2005.

John Langton is better known for his atmospheric treatments of light in landscape and gardens, but at the time he was keen to experiment with the then new art of screen printing, and did a series of hard edge abstract compositions using numbers and shapes. To me they had an exciting retro look and a 60s art school feel - I remember watching a student intern teaching assistant doing similar screen prints at my school at about that time.

John Langton told me that he had been influenced by the blocky shapes in Matisse's cut-outs, and I used the appealing misregistration and blockiness of the work as the basis for a series of prints which were printed digitally for a commission for the City Learning Centre at Newfield School, in which elements of the vector artwork were deliberately misaligned to create a built up feel with small gaps between the areas of colour.

Studio work on this stage of the project was by Ben McErlain in the Archipelago studio at the time. There were eight pieces and at last, working with another Ben (McLaughlin) and Josh Bedford I have produced the first two of these as screen prints, with one area of translucent colour overprinted on to base colour areas to generate extra colour blocks. In the two pieces carried out to date, there are four colourways so far, each of which is in a signed limited edition of 10."

Rupert Wood, June 2010