MEET THE MASTER – ANDY CROSS

November 11, 2016

6pm

Free Event, RSVP to secure your seat.

Andy Cross officially approves contemporary dye transfer prints from Eliot Porter’s images for the Porter estate. Andy’s dye transfer and tri-colour carbon work has been exhibited in America and is included in significant private and public collections around the world.

Andy is one of the few world-wide exponents of this process.

We at Maud Creative are passionate about film photography and alternate processes.  Celebrating our ‘Festival of the Darkroom’ in the month of November, we are bringing to Brisbane this special, once-only event, where Andy Cross will present a discussion of the DYE – TRANSFER PROCESS and show examples of this unique and mythical process.

Back in 1987 when I began studying for my BA (photography) at QCA, I learned that most colour photography was fugitive. The colours will change, fade and migrate over time. This was the main reason most photographic images in fine art museums, archives and collections throughout the world were monochrome of some type. It seemed pointless to pursue the craft of fine art printing using any type of colour materials. Until I discovered this wasn’t always the case. Our forefathers could and did make non fugitive colour prints. That’s what I wanted but was told you can’t have it anymore. That was like a red rag to a bull. I found there were still people making colour prints that met or exceeded the standards museums would accept. By 1990 I had adopted the dye transfer process as my main method of making fine art colour prints. As time progressed I learned the even more tedious and rare process of tri-colour carbon printing.

To the best of my knowledge I am the only person in the Southern Hemisphere using these processes to reproduce my work. Globally, there are only about 35 people still making dye transfer prints. Most of them are labs rather than individuals. Only about 20 people are still involved making tri-colour carbon prints. Unless more people become educated in what these processes are and the knowledge passed on the process will truly vanish along with all the other types of colour prints.

Through educational opportunities like this offered by the Maud Creative, hand crafted colour print making might carry on into the next generation.  – Andy Cross 2016

Image Andy Cross. With the yellow and magenta transfer laid down the author roles down the final cyan matrix
Image Andy Cross. With the yellow and magenta transfer laid down the author roles down the final cyan matrix
Image: Andy Cross. Draining excess magenta dye from a matrix printer prior to transferring
Image: Andy Cross. Draining excess magenta dye from a matrix printer prior to transferring