Launch 6pm Thu 3 May
Running 4-19 May
Meet the Artist Day Sat 5 May
In-Spire Galerie
56 Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin 1
Opening Hours Tue-Sat 11am-5pm
Inked & Pressed: From Digital Image to Hand Pulled Print is an exhibition that focuses on the use of the intaglio printmaking process to create photographic prints of the beautiful things that surround our everyday lives. Through Matthew’s interpretation and abstraction of line, structure and form, he has built on the concept of the aesthetic pleasure to be found in the often un-observed objects and landscapes that surround our daily lives.
The use of traditional printmaking techniques to create photographic prints goes back to the dawn of photography itself with photogravure (the earliest forms of photo intaglio printmaking) being developed by Nicéphore Niépce and Henry Fox Talbot, two of the original pioneers of photography. In the twentieth century photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Paul Strand used the technique to create some of their most iconic prints. As with photography, there have also been a number of significant technological advances in printmaking, including the introduction of photopolymers in the 1990’s. Traditional forms of photogravure printmaking required the use of hazardous chemicals, but with the introduction of photopolymer plates it is now possible to create photo intaglio prints in a relatively non-toxic environment.
At a time when debate is raging amongst many photographers as to what is the best or truest form of photography – plate, analogue or digital; when it is possible to create an inkjet print from an ambrotype plate, or use a digital negative to create a silver gelatin print, Matthew is reminded of a quote from Ansel Adams that “the negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance…”. What one hears in music or sees in photography is not the artistic process but the product of that process.
For the artist, the physical print is the pinnacle of the photographic process, and the intaglio printmaking technique allows him to fully realise his artistic vision. It provides Matthew with the ability to create prints with a richness in depth, tonality and texture that best allows to interpret the beauty in the commonplace and everyday world that surrounds us all.
Matthew Gammon is a self-taught photographic artist based in Boyle, County Roscommon. Originally from England, Matthew moved to Ireland in 1990. He began his journey into photography six years ago, and in the last three years has specialised in creating photo intaglio prints.
He was made a member of the Graphic Studio Dublin in 2016. His work is represented in a number of collections, including those of Roscommon County Council, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre and the Royal Photographic Society. His work has also appeared in a number of group exhibitions, including shows by the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Royal Ulster Academy, the Royal Photographic Society and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. In 2017, his first solo exhibition of photo intaglio prints appeared at the Strule Gallery, Omagh and toured to King House, Boyle and the National Museum of Ireland, Castlebar. He is currently represented by the Graphic Studio Gallery, Dublin and SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin.