Sitting in the lobby with Vincent Van Gogh, walking the halls next to Diego Velázquez, sharing the room with Andy Warhol, enjoying a plate with Henri Matisse or just going to the conference room with Joan Miró, is now much easier than it might seem a few years ago.
by Natalia Ospina Vélez
Sitting in the lobby with Vincent Van Gogh, walking the halls next to Diego Velázquez, sharing the room with Andy Warhol, enjoying a plate with Henri Matisse or just going to the conference room with Joan Miró, is now much easier than it might seem a few years ago. It's not a time machine or a method of going back to the past, it's just a way to combine technology with the legacy of artists who have made history. It is also a possibility to represent in the best possible way the most contemporary and avant-garde artistic trends.
"Currently, giclée is the term used to describe a reproduction of art made on a high-quality digital printer, on textile fabric (canvas) or on artistic paper of different textures," said Reyna Castaño, artistic director of Arténesis, a Mexican company dedicated to creation. representation of original works, lithography, framing and promotion of the new technique of giclée.
Art and technology
With the technological advances developed in recent decades, a new way of making art has also emerged: the giclée. This word of French origin comes from the verb gicler, which means to spray or spray and refers to the fine spraying of ink from the printer. To achieve this type of digital reproduction requires a fairly elaborate process that begins with the capture of a high-resolution image . Subsequently, it is necessary to work on a file to thoroughly capture all the details of the original work, including texture, depth and color.
"The most critical step for the quality of a giclée is when the image of the original work is first captured. That is why, at Arténesis, we capture the original works with the cruse scanner, a completely digital device, also used by the Vatican and the Smithsonian for the process of preserving the images in their collections," Castaño said. With this equipment that manages to digitize with high quality and obtain a real image with identical legibility as the original, Arténesis and its team of professionals is responsible for working the digital paintings to perfect the colors, edit them and produce giclées according to the measure and colors specified by the client. "Our wide-format digital printing equipment produces the best quality and consistency in all its reproductions and is capable of printing giclées up to more than one and a half meters wide and several meters long," added Reyna.
From the classic to the contemporary
With styles ranging from the traditional to the most avant-garde, Arténesis through the technique of giclée has managed to reproduce different images for several projects and hotel chains. "Really, as our clientele includes a wide range of hoteliers and restaurateurs, each with their own needs, it is difficult to identify precisely what would be the most requested style. In many cases decorators look for a particular theme where it is required to create the work with figurative themes and others lean towards abstract works that reflect fashionable decorative trends, " Castaño explained.
Likewise, the experience and recent works made by Arténesis demonstrate a marked tendency for oriental styles and Zen influence. Eco-friendly styles, plus the use of natural materials and colors, also seem to make a difference today. Of course, without stopping by the classic, the eclectic, the rustic or the folkloric, until reaching a mixture of minimalism with tropical touches.
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Other forms of reproduction
While the different technological advances and the needs of the art and decoration industry have the giclée as a novel way of working, other more traditional techniques are still in force. Therefore, in addition to the giclée, Arténesis offers other types of reproductions of works. They are the repetition of original pieces and the transfer of lithographs. The first, although it is a work that requires a lot of time and expertise, is nothing more than the elaboration of the work by hand, but always using the same image. For its part, the transfer of lithographs is also an elaborate technique, where the image of the paper is transferred to the artist's canvas. The latter is a chemical-based process, which is subsequently given a special texturing finish creating the appearance of an original work.
According to those who know about the subject, lithography is the term used for an image reproduced in offset. Through this technique the ink of an image of a plate is transferred to a sheet and then to the surface to be printed that is, Paper or cloth. This method combines a lithographic process based on the repulsion of water and oil, thus achieving a high-quality, low-cost printing for volume reproductions.
"The process begins with the elaboration of the work in our own artistic workshop. We offer our clients the option of creating an image with the theme, colors and size that they require for their project. Once the work has been created, the client has the option to acquire the original or request reproductions of it, through the repetition of original pieces, the giclée or the transfer of lithographs," Castaño added.
Attention to the decoration
A beautiful work of art located in an empty space, with a set that clashes or simply a combination of trends that saturate the place, could become a "visual offense" not only for those who appreciate art with a critical eye, but for the general public. This is how coordinating works of art with decorative elements becomes a challenge and is a task that should be delegated only to experts in the field. Attending to this need and with more than 18 years of experience and nearly 1,500 original works created in its workshop, Arténesis offers its experience through consulting and teamwork with its clients.
There art is then mixed with decorative elements including furniture, accessories, tonalities in the decoration, as well as geographical location and architectural style. "In most cases, our clients provide us with the specifications of their project and we take care of presenting them with the options that we think are most suitable. In other cases, our client already has an idea in mind, we interpret their style and make artistic works that we think fit their project. Our job is always to be familiar with trends in architecture, art and decoration so we can easily interpret what our buyers are requesting," Reyna said.
In this sense and with the use of the giclée technique, it is very common that when delivering a work of art, the client requests the omission of the frame with which the paintings are traditionally surrounded. In that case, the work is mounted on a thick edge frame thus achieving an aesthetic and contemporary result at the same time. "In case of adding a frame, the trend is very simple. Generally we have been asked for a linear style that does not carry any detail, chocolate, pewter (metallic) or black. We also suggest such a style because it will always look elegant, it is affordable and the best thing is that this style is what is fashionable.", Reyna said.
With the variety of tastes and trends, feedback should be the constant as far as art and decoration is concerned. For each project there are new challenges in the creation of artistic works, an aspect that must always be used as an impulse for the creation and development of new and striking proposals.
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