Check the fine print

Printmaking is the process of producing art where the artist creates his work in a way that there can be multiple prints of it. It is through this process that we have most of our earlier art forms reproduced and preserved. International modern artists like Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso worked extensively with graphic prints, leading to an increased popularity of prints in the contemporary art marketplace.

By Carlos Baena Echererry from Colombia

Though this process enables cheaper art for people, the tedious and complicated method, usually involving etching on a zinc or copper plate for long hours, has lost appeal with artists and they are abandoning it.

"This means that there will be no art affordable for even the middle class," explains Ravindra Mardia, founder-director of International Creative Art Centre, which has organised the International Print Exchange Program 2016 this week to encourage artists to return to the process of printmaking.

Dubai printmaker Iram Wani's work

Mardia says that the event itself is an incentive for the artists to create prints. "Each artist will contribute 25 prints and get 22 prints from different artists from across the world in return," he says.

A print by Toni Mosley of New Zealand

The organisers have already received 500 prints from over 40 artists from 10-15 countries. "We have received response from USA, UK, Netherlands, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and more. In fact, we hope that this interaction will help our Indian artists with exposure to other cultures where printmaking is anything but dying. Particularly in Europe, it is thriving," he says.

H Bautista, France

Markets for prints had developed in the West much earlier, he informs. "It is a niche area because the marketing strategy is different. There is a greater need for dedicated print galleries for collectors of prints. The underlying theme of printmaking is that it has the ability to be mass-produced and reach a large audience, and that is what is required in India today," he says.
He says that a huge bank of works from the programme will be used for research, training and also kept in archives.

A work by Carmen Maria from Germany

Levan Jones, an artist from Spain is excited about the possibility of introducing his work in India. "This is a huge programme where even the international artists get to create their identity in India. Printmaking is an old and a long lost concept, which is taken over by canvas printing. I am happy to learn that India is also giving more importance to graphic printmaking as we do in our country," he says.