Ian Cooper
Nick, 2015-17
Silkscreen, laser-cut paper, letterpress on handmade paper
13 x 19 inches each
Signed, numbered, dated verso
Edition of 10
$1000 Framed
Wholesale, 2012
Silkscreen, letterpress on laser-cut paper
28 x 15 x 1 1/2 inches
Variable edition of 6
$1300 Framed
The Last S, 2010
Letterpress, spray
12 x 9 inches
Edition of 6
$550
Nick: Ian came in to the shop with a present/blade idea he had been playing around with, and we started off simply enough- printing full sheets of flat beige color for the backgrounds and red for the wrapping pieces and bow. We resolved the blade by cutting some nice handmade paper and embossing the texture from the backside of a piece of linoleum, a sort of irregular burlap design. After the blades were in place, Ian figured out a sliver of bow to remove to it tucked delicately into the blade for the slice.
Wholesale: Printing was a bit tricky. Full sheets of paper were first silkscreened in flat colors. The tattooed images were then printed across the sheets based on a previously designed laser-cut pattern to happen after printing. We ended up printing the tattoo's in a pink color first before we played in a blue/gray, this way the tattoo's looked slightly new and painful. After the laser cutting Ian made 6 unique arrangements for the variable edition.
The Last S: This was the first print Ian and I worked on. Ian actually made a full size drawing of the image, and used color pencil or crayon to roughly scribble in the pink values. We ended up having two polymer plates made- one for the outline font, then the second plate was cut apart to print multiple tones in subsequent runs. We did a light water/ink mix in a spray blast aimed at the S.