Waterford artist and dye-transfer printer Jean Curran created an exhibition of original dye-transfer prints from Technicolor movies in the form of an immersive art trail.

Running from May through to September 2021, an array of original handmade prints are exhibited in unoccupied shop fronts and available business windows throughout the town of Dungarvan, County Waterford – creating an open-air exhibition. Professionally presented in the shop windows, the prints create an immersive art trail allowing the audience to engage in the works as they move from building to building.

Funded by Creative Ireland (Waterford) and the Waterford City & County Council Arts Office, the Dungarvan Art Trail experience aims to enliven and animate the overall façade of the buildings, enhancing the immersive experience.

As one of only four dye-transfer printers operating in the world today, Jean is the only contemporary artist using this highly skilled and almost obsolete method of printing as the basis of her artistic practice. In her work, Jean references not only early colour film, but also the nostalgia related to the golden era of full-colour filmmaking and early colour film processes.

Dye-transfer printing is a full-colour photographic printing process that was popular between the 1920s and the 1950s. The process involves three layers of dye; cyan, magenta, and yellow, they are applied sequentially, by hand, to one emulsion layer. The process by which Jean Curran makes her prints is deeply laborious and the time, technical knowledge, and attention that she bestows on each colour print recall a painter or sculptors’ dedication to their art, as expressed through the process of construction.

This experiential art exhibition of dye-transfer photographic prints shows original prints from Technicolor movies, starting with Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo. The prints pay homage to the process by which the films were made and the masters who made them. The works follow the linear structure of the film, the isolation of key scenes demonstrate the opulence and use of colour through each of the works shown.

The Dungarvan Art Trail initiative has created an opportunity for viewers to re-appraise their connection with the space in which the art is displayed and aims to deepen the level of engagement between the community, local business, and the artworks.

Find out more at Dungarvan Art Trail online.