SILK-SCREEN PRINTING TECHNIQUES

Andy Warhol in his studio (The Factory) in New York. Screen printing became one of the main means of expression in Pop Art.

Artistic SERIGRAPHY (since it had been practised for centuries in China for serial use) also has well-known origins: in the mid-17th century, the Japanese artist Some Ya Yu Tzen invented the permeographic process, which would only become known to the world in the mid-19th century through the British, under the name of serigraphy. The process is elementary: the matrix is a frame on which an open-weave fabric is fixed, which is then waterproofed according to the design. During printing, the ink pushed by a squeegee (a sort of rubber blade) filters through the untreated parts of the fabric and is deposited on the surface below. Originally, silk matrices were used for this technique (hence the name), but in recent decades synthetic materials have been introduced which, combined with new printing systems, allow for extreme flexibility throughout the process, even in multi-colour jobs. The main feature of the screen printing technique is the possibility of using saturated and opaque inks to obtain large, uniform surfaces. It is now easy to understand how original graphics have taken on a life of their own, establishing themselves fully since the early 20th century with their own values and language, and today we are witnessing growing public interest.