Dust, Breath and Varnish on Glass

each of these works by artist Markus Hansen, is unique and there is only one edition of each image.

2004 • Dust, breath and varnish on glass

from the explanation about this strange title and method of creation:

"My studio was always covered with dust and when I moved things it left traces. It was the perfect compliment to the chromed hygiene pieces. I began controlling the marks left by the dust using stamps and cut out images. After a while I started using silkscreen for greater definition. The image of the curtain dates back to a photograph from the "Phantom series"; a body of photographs taken over ten years in Germany, in my Grandmothers' house and in Baden-Baden where I spent my nearly childhood.""The curtain was the curtain that intrigued me when I was a small child. My families' post war history was full of secrets and taboos. The curtain, which I did not dare to look behind until I was much older, carried most of this symbolic weight of the unspoken and unsaid. ..."

Curtain 8, 2004, dust, breath and varnish on glassPrivate Collection, Paris.

large version

"The photographic image is worked and reworked on the computer so as to findthe point of equilibrium between visible and invisible for when the dirt isfinally applied. The reworked image is then transferred to a silkscreen.The image is printed with transparent ultra-violet proof ink onto glass. Atthis point I am working blind, I know more by touching the test prints withmy fingers than by looking at them. Once I have what appears to be afaultless print, I take dust I have gathered and create a cloud of thefinest particles and let them slowly settle onto the image. I then blowacross the image so as to reveal it. The ink and dust are dried and fixed inan ultra-violet oven. "