Printing an image with a thermal printer using colour ribbons creates blank areas in the individual CMYK ribbons which can leave about 90% of each ribbons’ colour intact. Printing further images with these used colour ribbons leaves areas of the subsequent image with areas missing, identified by colours coming through from the solid parts of other ribbons.
In 2002, I had access to such a printing system and to see what resulted, thought to print onto paper the nine segments of my earlier work ‘Number 5 Surrounded by his Associates’. Clearly a fair deal of the magenta ribbon remained, and to balance the work, the nine printed images were treated so as to render them translucent and then placed over photo- luminescent panels so that they glow when seen in the dark or in low light conditions.
As these nine images of numerals were originally made of wood and now assumed another character, it seemed only reasonable to display them within a wooden context. Making reference to, and a counterpoint to, the original material of the printed images, these 9 individual numbers, each framed in Ash wood, again became separate areas, as per the original, parent work.
The four colours making the printed areas, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK, are abstracted and emphasized as part of the total composition, both in solid and translucent states.
From then on, the work became an essay in trying to achieve a sense of equality between each individual number, producing a visual balance in which each number value would play an equal part.
Identifying the spectator with the concept of ‘One’, I chose to place the numeral ‘1’ in the centre and see how the outer numbers could then relate, attempting to represent a world of equality for all.
