Michael Brown

My hybrid optical art printmaking process can be used to create either animated graphics or three-dimensional imagery. The basis for my art is a technique invented in the early 1900s to make 3D pictures that could be viewed without special glasses or viewing instruments. The ability to create animated art with this process was discovered years later.Making hand made prints of this nature is an exacting meticulous procedure using rather obscure materials. Multiple photographic images are screened and interlaced creating a pattern of very fine alternating lines each measuring less than 1/500 inch wide.The screened images are used to create a matrix film sheet, which holds all the multiple interlaced images in a positive rendition made up of the subtractive primary colorants of cyan, magenta & yellow. The matrix film sheet must be the same size as the final print. The matrix consists of an ink receptive coating over a dimensionally stable plastic base.An acrylic lens screen that is flat on one side and grooved on the other is used as part of the finished art. This material has an extremely narrow tolerance for variation in dimension caused by shifts in temperature and humidity. I calibrate these grooved sheets through intensive testing to match them to the screened art.The final print is obtained by hand-aligning the grooved acrylic screen over the matrix film sheet using a specially built optical bench I developed for this process. The screen and film must be parallel to each other to within 1/100 inch. Once the screen is hand aligned; one edge of it is tacked to the matrix film sheet. The film/screen sandwich is then permanently bonded together using an optically clear adhesive. I do this by running the materials through a roller press under pressure by hand.The art is mounted, matted and framed using traditional techniques. From start to finish, each piece takes about three days to make. The art is produced in numbered editions and each piece is hand crafted by me from my original photography.