1986 Plate

This triptych was made for an exhibition titled Yesterday & Today held at the Jonathan Bancroft Gallery in London, Ontario in 2012. The concept for the show, was to have invited artists select an older work, which would inspire a new piece.
The original plate was made in 1986 – it was part of a series of slip-cast square plates, which were decorated using under-glaze painting and maiolica techniques.
For the 2012 Remix I photographed the original plate and used the image to make digital decals, which were in turn, applied to new plates. The image was cut and partially assembled following the original composition in Remix 1 and deconstructed in Remix 2. In a sense I “lifted” the image from the 1986 plate and reconstructed it
on new plates.
I used the original mould to make the new plates.
Digital decal printing is a fairly new process, which allows photographic like imagery to be applied to ceramic surfaces. It is essentially a colour copier, which prints with ceramic/glaze inks.

The “1986 Plate” was slip cast of white earthenware, coated with black terra sigillata on back, under-glaze painted and bisque fired to cone 03. It was glazed with a matt transparent glaze and re-fired to cone 06. The centre square was coated with a titanium glaze and lightly embellished with stains and under-glaze pencil and also fired to cone 06.
The new remixes are also cast of white earthenware, coated with black terra sigillata on back and bisqued to cone 03. A white matt glaze is applied and fired to cone 06.
On this glazed surface the decals are applied and fired to cone 016.

The idea was to use the “decoration” of 1986 in a new way using modern image manipulation and printing techniques. This could not have been done 10/15 years ago.
It is of course self-referential.

Angelo di Petta