Guest Blogger – Sean Puckett @ the Red River Paper Blog
This week’s guest blogger for Red River Paper is Sean Puckett of Kitchener Ontario. He recently completed a gallery hanging of work printed on Red River UltraPro Satin. Enjoy the story of his work and exhibition. Many thanks to Sean for sharing his experience!
My fine art photography modulates realism through the bold schools of Impressionism and graphic design. My most recent solo exhibition featured 23 works, each approximately 4 square feet in size.
Selected Prints, Buildings and Branches, Sean M Puckett, Solo Exhibition, September 2009.
With strong contrasts, deep blacks and vibrant colors, my works demand much from a printing media. For this exhibition, I chose Red River Paper’s UltraPro Satin. UltraPro Satin’s brilliant white base and high DMAX allows my imagery’s sparkling highlights, vibrant colors, rich shadow detail and deep black to look its best.
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Property Line, 2009; Tree Before Bricks, 2008; Strata, 2008; Sean M Puckett, Photograph, Inkjet Print, Various Sizes.
For maximum impact, all of the prints were mounted floater style. No mats, no frame, no glass, no border. Just the image, floating 2 inches in front of the wall. To achieve this effect, I used a cold mount adhesive from DryTac with a roller press to mount each print to a 1/4″ plywood blank. Mounted prints were trimmed to size on a carpenter’s tablesaw with a fine toothed blade. On the back of each piece, a hanging system was attached using Velcro. A detachable hanging system allows the show to be shipped very compactly.
Mounting “Tree Before Bricks”, 2009, Sean M Puckett, Photograph.
My studio printer is the Hewlett-Packard z3100, a machine I have owned for 2 1/2 years and am thrilled with. The combination of UltraPro Satin’s heavy weight and sturdy coating with the z3100’s light-fast pigmented inks gave me the confidence to exhibit these prints “naked” — without glazing. While I would not recommend offering naked prints to customers as ready-to-hang, for gallery exhibition they are truly excellent.
Selected Prints: Jupiter I – IV, 2007, Sean M Puckett, Photograph, Inkjet Print, each 20×30.
In my opinion, the highest achievement possible for a printing media is for it to be unnoticed. That is, for the artwork to be represented with such power and fidelity that the details of printmaking are invisible to the casual observer. By this metric, UltraPro Satin is the perfect paper. Show attendees never once asked, “how did you print that?” Or, “what is that printed on?” They simply fell into my photographs, captivated. What more could a photographer wish for?
The Old Mill, 2009, Sean M Puckett, Photograph, Inkjet Print, 20×32.
Sean M. Puckett is a photographer and photo printer based in Kitchener, Ontario.
His online gallery can be found at http://seanmpuckett.com/
Email him directly at [email protected]
All images copyright Sean M Puckett, used with permission.
