Anish Kapoor opens an ultramarine fissure with his first silkscreen print.
While painting has become a central focus for Kapoor over the last decade, drawing has been an integral part of his practice from the very beginning – offering a tactile counterpart to his more seamless sculptures.
Out of the Dark immerses the viewer in a mountain-like form that opens into a deep blue cavernous void. The print is based on a gouache work from 2016, taken from a group of drawings which evoke 'sites of origin' as mounds, mountains and voids in deeply saturated colours.
The artist has described blue as "a colour that reveals darkness in a deep and mysterious way." It was used by Kapoor in his earliest explorations of the void as a sculptural form. Like the dichotomy between his sculptures and paintings, it exists in balance with its perceived opposite. While red calls to mind blood and bodies, blue is transcendent and empty. Earthly, yet cosmic.
Working closely with Kapoor, printmakers at Make-Ready in London paid close attention to chromatic accuracy. Spot colours including pure ultramarine were added to a CMYK separation to maximise depth and intensity in a 24 layer silkscreen print.
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