Interview with David Attal et Hervé Pain
If the artist understands the language of shapes, colours, lines and light, the quality of these art work’s printing is essential in order to best translate its work sensibility.
In photography, the digital priniting has forced this key profession to evolve, but in which manner? FOTODART has put this meticulous task into practice with Isabelle Girollet’s art work for some years. Let’s discover this magical profession through David Attal and Hervé Pain’s interview.
Camille Delcour – When and how did the idea of Fotodart come to exist ?
Fotodart – The idea of Fotodart is to be an alternative to the big laboratories, they are very expensive – which is often justified for many reasons – but when discussing with photographers, a residual feeling of an incomplete satisfaction remains. Fotodart is born from the desire to share a passion for a new profession and to undertake the synergy between two friends that became associates. Very fast did we notice the interest of the Fine Print and this is why we created our workshop early in September 2005.
CD – What is a Fine Art printing? In what way does it outstand itself from an ordinary printing?
Fotodart – They are ultra-qualitative prints realized on 100% cotton matt or calendered art papers which use ink pigments. These papers which their whiteness allows excellent contrasts as well in Black & White as in Colour. The calendered papers have a surface which can be compared with traditional analog papers and have been conceived in order to approach the visual appearance of Baryté (N&B) or Cibachrome (colour).
This way, we obtain prints of exception, velvety and detailed. The combination inks-paper of these original printing assures an optimal shelf life, which is certified by independent organisms of disposable producers. In the same way as conventional lithography, Fine Art print is the possibility for the authors to produce limited signed, numbered, stamped (see certificate of authenticity) series.
CD – The digital has transformed a lot the work of the photographer-artist. How does it influence your profession?
Fotodart – Some think that we lose a lot with the new digital techniques compared to the artisanal techniques of analog printing. For my part, I think that the two things we have lost is the magical instant of the picture appearance in the chemistry and the “random accidents” oftenly so interesting and disturbing.
As for the rest, the pleasure and the desire remain intact, satisfaction even bigger yet as the digital tool power gives us a higher trueness. With a scanner and a screen we are like being in front of an enlarger but with the painter’s power we can choose the shade, the tension, the vibration… of the more tiny parts of our pictures and with a higher precision.
It is a new profession at the crossing of already existing ones: the printing, the lithography, photographic print with a vocabulary to invent or to subtly use: print or impression, making-up or photoshop.
CD – Which printing techniques do you offer and which ones are used for Isabelle Girollet’s art work?
Fotodart – Our workshop offers several solutions depending on the clients’ need and our politic is to suggest them at competitive prices.
The aluminium and Dibond® counter bonding is the most fit to preserve a “raw” print and to be exhibit, the spectator remains in direct contact with the piece of art, the matter and texture of the paper.
The bonding under Plexiglas (Diasec®) consists of adding an acrylic glass on an aluminium counter bonding base. This high-end solution reinforces the colors’ contrasts and gives to the picture a new deepness. Every detail is highlighted even in the dark areas. As far as protection is concern, the art work is totally protected against the dusts, the oxygen and the ultraviolet rays. It is, by the way, one of the processes used for Isabelle Girollet’s pieces of art.
We produce her also Fine Art on matte big size paper put under Plexiglas boxes by Aplastic94’s Company.
CD – Describe your collaboration with Isabelle Girollet in three words?
Fotodart – Reflected, Colours and Purity.
If I had to resume Isabelle’s personality in three words, it would be ¨joie de vivre¨.
Without toadying, it is a real pleasure to see Isabelle arrive at the workshop as she is always in a good mood! Which does not prevent her to be very demanding in her work but the relation comes out all the more powerful. She has a precise idea of the way she wants to see her pictures printed but listens carefully all the same to our suggestions that we provide her during tests phases before the final print.
In her pictures, I find that she knows how to bring a real meaning to the detail, “God and the Devil are in the details”.
David Attal, Hervé Pain, thank you a lot for your time.
Find out Fotodart on the official site.
FOTODART Workshop information
The puirsuit of FOTODART is to give its authentic noble letters to the Fine Art but to equally entertain a priveledged relationship whith the artists, digital artists and photographers. Available and competitive, FOTODART puts its digital expertise and its photographic savoir-faire at the authors’ service and becomes, thus, a true companion.
FOTODART has worked with photographers and artists of great reputation like Gueorgui Pinkhassov (Magnum), Fouad Elkoury (Signatures), JR, Richard Texier, Yann Arthus Bertrand…
Photographers from all over the world, professionals or amateurs, we do not draw any distinction “every client is treated with the same manner, always on appointment and not in haste”.
