Roger Farnham
Confrontation, 2022
photo-etching
52 x 72 cm
20 1/2 x 28 3/8 in
20 1/2 x 28 3/8 in
edition of 25
Courtesy of Glasgow Print Studio - Please note, this work is owned and printed by the artist. Such works may occasionally be unavailable at the time of purchase or enquiry.
This print was created in conjunction with the Glasgow Print Studio 50th Anniversary Here & Now Legacy Project. 'The picture started life as a photograph taken in 1992. In February...
This print was created in conjunction with the Glasgow Print Studio 50th Anniversary Here & Now Legacy Project. "The picture started life as a photograph taken in 1992. In February 1992, in a faraway place, I took a picture of my hotel window, as was my wont. In the 1980s I had made a number of photo-etchings from photographs of windows. In 1993 a smaller plate was made, then my engineering career became quite demanding and only digital prints were made for some time. The 1993 plate got lost, then found; a proof was made in 2022, a scan of the proof became the basis of a new plate."
"Finishing this image has been on my mind for 29 years! My printmaking was seriously curtailed in 1993 when my engineering day job changed radically; I suppose it was a promotion. It was at least 10 years before any more prints were created, and then only inkjet prints, but I did manage to make look like screen prints."
"My return to proper printmaking was via a couple of proper screenprints, a number of laser-cut wood cuts, some adventures in copperplate photogravure, and finally back to photo-etching on steel plates, which had been my main thing in the 1980s. This plate is in some ways a continuation of (the research for) a paper I presented last September at the UWE CFPR / RPS Don’t Press Print conference."
"I am an engineer and the use of photo-chemistry - both the 1980s stuff and the new Photrak - developed for the microelectronics industry always seemed appropriate. I have not been an electronics engineer for a long time."
Roger Farnham was born in 1952 in Co Armagh. He studied engineering at Queen University Belfast, and later did a masters at the University of Strathclyde. His printmaking education has all been with the Glasgow Print Studio, but he is very experimental with the technology, particularly on photo-sensitive acid-resists. His first course at the studio was in 1977 in screenprinting, and since then, lithography, etching and relief printing.
His printmaking has always been photographically-derived. Some exhibitions have had engineering associations, such as 'All
About Barns and Sheds' (2004, nuclear decommissioning), b l u e p r i n t (2013, using printing processes used in engineering and architecture) and The James Watt Print Show in 2019. Many of his images document family history or Glasgow’s industrial past. He also shows straight photography; he was a founding member of Street Level (Glasgow Photography Group) in 1989.
"Finishing this image has been on my mind for 29 years! My printmaking was seriously curtailed in 1993 when my engineering day job changed radically; I suppose it was a promotion. It was at least 10 years before any more prints were created, and then only inkjet prints, but I did manage to make look like screen prints."
"My return to proper printmaking was via a couple of proper screenprints, a number of laser-cut wood cuts, some adventures in copperplate photogravure, and finally back to photo-etching on steel plates, which had been my main thing in the 1980s. This plate is in some ways a continuation of (the research for) a paper I presented last September at the UWE CFPR / RPS Don’t Press Print conference."
"I am an engineer and the use of photo-chemistry - both the 1980s stuff and the new Photrak - developed for the microelectronics industry always seemed appropriate. I have not been an electronics engineer for a long time."
Roger Farnham was born in 1952 in Co Armagh. He studied engineering at Queen University Belfast, and later did a masters at the University of Strathclyde. His printmaking education has all been with the Glasgow Print Studio, but he is very experimental with the technology, particularly on photo-sensitive acid-resists. His first course at the studio was in 1977 in screenprinting, and since then, lithography, etching and relief printing.
His printmaking has always been photographically-derived. Some exhibitions have had engineering associations, such as 'All
About Barns and Sheds' (2004, nuclear decommissioning), b l u e p r i n t (2013, using printing processes used in engineering and architecture) and The James Watt Print Show in 2019. Many of his images document family history or Glasgow’s industrial past. He also shows straight photography; he was a founding member of Street Level (Glasgow Photography Group) in 1989.
