Collage #14 - Manufactured Manual (2022) © Jaya Pelupessy - Courtesy Galerie Caroline O'Breen

Written by Katie Grierson
Copy Edited by Parker Renick
Photo Edited by Lucia Luzzani

Tracing back to the Egyptian tombs and Greek mosaics, silkscreen printing is an ancient art form. Usually utilized for graphic designs, silkscreen printing can be used to create reproductions of artwork; colored stencils are chosen to match the original artwork and are then placed against a porous screen and onto the paper below it. Today, we use silkscreen printing to make book covers, posters, signs, advertisements, and designs on T-shirts or coffee mugs. However, in Manufactured Manual, Jaya Pelupessy takes this method of reproducing and coloring prints and makes it new, rejuvenating the process.

Approaching this work as means of deconstructing photography and reproduction, Jaya Pelupessy mimics the actions of silkscreen printing, but instead of using ink, he exposes negatives onto the silkscreen. In this way, Manufactured Manual displays a completely new photographic technique, and the means of making the photographs are as much a part of the series as the photographs themselves. Pelupessy views all the work he does as photography, seeing “no difference between exposing light-sensitive paper in a dark room or exposing a screen-printing screen with UV-light.” He continues by saying, “The screen is normally a tool for pushing colored ink through but I’ve used it in a way that turns that tool into the artwork itself.” In his studio, the Cherry Orchard, in Utrecht, the manufacturing is as important as the finished manual: Pelupessy crafts his own emulsions, applies them to the screen, exposes them, and continues to layer color after color. The hands-on approach is specific, playful, and serious; it is representative of the work that goes into photo making and reproducing, while also purposefully ignoring what photography and reproduction should do: in his series, he creates singular distinctive works, not copies.

Collage #13 - Manufactured Manual (2022) © Jaya Pelupessy - Courtesy Galerie Caroline O'Breen

Interested in revealing the technical makeup of photography, Pelupessy’s exhibition acts as an extension of this curiosity, toying with color and light, using multiple exposures and collages, and employing photography manuals, as referenced in the title: Manufactured Manual. Pelupessy utilizes archival images from manuals and books on photography, using the UV light against the silkscreen to merge portraits with instructions about shutter speeds, for instance, seamlessly. Pelupessy’s manual is silent, allowing each photo to teach about photography. But Manufactured Manual serves as a manual for much more than just photography–it educates about creativity and research and challenges us to look beyond the confines of what we know, what we are comfortable with, and view art as something in constant conversation with itself.

Manufactured Manual confronts what photography is, what it does, and takes it out of its comfort zone. Pelupessy’s method of reproduction transcends the traditional ideas of screen printing, serving as a reminder that all art can be made new again and that it can enter into new territories–ones that we can’t imagine or control.

Manufactured Manual was on display at the Galerie Caroline O’Breen. It opened on March 12 and continued to be on display until April 2, 2022.

Apr 27 Exhibition Review: Jaya Pelupessy: Manufactured Manual

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