When you’re painting, drips are usually bad. But, if you’re clever enough, you can put ’em to good use. That’s what artist Ben Dehaan did with his project “Uncured”, by using a print loaded with some ultraviolet cured ink to create face-melting portraits worthy of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The process relies on the nature of ultraviolet cured ink, which is used in most commercial digital printers. When explosed to UV light, the ink dries almost instantly, which allows printers to churn out nice, crisp images. But when it’s not cured with UV rays, things get messy.
Dehaan explains:
When uncured, the ink remains toxic and fluid. I am exploring the use of these printers without their essential element, UV light, in what I like to think of as a new process — UV uncurable inkjet printing perhaps? The images are printed uncured and flat, then positioned vertically allowing the ink to run. The images are not digitially manipulated but are rather representations of different moments during the process.
The before and after shots are unsettling and awesome all on their own, but over on Dehaan’s website, you can watch a timelapse of the pictures slowly deforming as the ink rolls down the canvas. It’s disturbingly cool. Suddenly, I think I might be in the market for a portait.
