A Polychromy in Black (Artworks for Bideford Black: The Next Generation)

A year long commissioned artwork, funded by the Arts Council of England and exhibited as part of a group show at The Burton Art Gallery & Museum, Bideford, UK.

In the world of print, black is also synonymous with ubiquity and universality: a colour to embody all colours. Black is words, black is images. It’s a catch-all, an involuntary go-to. We rely on black instinctively to dash-off a printed version of a document (you don’t after all resort to printing it in red). If we consider the invention of the Gutenberg press as one of the most significant innovations of the modern world, an invention that ultimately allowed people to communicate in a way they had never previously been able to, then the invention of a stable, indelible, and above all black ink, must play a noteworthy role in that success.

'A Polychromy in Black' takes Bideford Black – a unique, natural pigment mined in Devon – and explores its qualities as an ink on a press. As part of my research, over the course of the year-long project, I developed a useable letterpress ink from Bideford Black, which is both permanent and quick-drying. The project is also an investigation into light, dark and colour, as discovered in the tones and textures of a selection of paintings, prints and drawings from the Burton Art Gallery & Museum’s collections. Nine artefacts were gathered for their exploration of representations of darkness, shadow, gloom or tone. Each of these artefacts subsequently informed one or sometimes several graphite drawings created to form a new set of tones.