Re-discovering the Joly screen process through making art as practice research with
Alan Phelan
The Joly screen process was the first screen plate commercially introduced for colour images. Patented in 1894 and introduced in 1895 by Irish physicist John Joly, the process had a very short life and was out of use within a decade. It did however prove Louis Ducos du Hauron's colour theories in making a full-colour image via a red, green and blue filter, where a striped screen is placed in front of black & white film on exposure and then display. The process was subsumed by the autochrome and largely forgotten and unused subsequently.
Over the past 6 years I have revived the process and used it as part of a series of exhibitions. My approach is far from scientific and far less detailed that the original but I have managed to make these additive photographs using analogue methods (albeit with a digitally produced striped screen). I have remained true to the process and exhibit the film from the camera, not reproductions as I reverse process the sheet film used. The method is precarious using analogue chemistry and the results are unpredictable but stunning when it works. The small photographs function like illuminated miniatures, and demand a different engagement from that of contemporary photography. A parallax effect adds an extra analogue kick where the colour shifts as the RGB screen lines mis-align.
As the process was not much used I have sought to create a new visual history that the process never had a chance to have. This has involved traversing many centuries and media, exploring a wide range of images, themes, and concepts. The difficulty in explaining the process in a digital world has also led me to use the RGB colour palette in a variety of installations, sculptures and interventions.
I will discuss the original process, my version of it and how I have used it in different art contexts. The Joly screen process is lacking serious academic research and I hope my work can help in unlocking some of the barriers that have left the process to dark fade into obscurity.
Reading Material:
* Essay by Joanne Laws in response to the exhibition Red Lines, 2019 at The Dock, Carrick-on Shannon, Ireland
https://alanphelan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/JOANNE_LAWS_A_response_to_an_exhibition_Red_Lines_Alan_Phelan_1-min.pdf
* PDF published as a USB card documenting the work with the Dunboyne Flower and Garden Club in making floral Joly screen photographs, 2019-2020
http://www.alanphelan.com/AlanPhelanJOLY2020.21.pdf
* Review of the exhibition Echos toujours plus sourds (echos are always more muted) at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, 2019 by Gilles Renault for Libération
https://www.liberation.fr/images/2021/01/21/alan-phelan-dans-les-racines-oubliees-de-la-couleur_1818160/
English translation at https://alanphelan.com/associated-texts/echos-toujours-plus-sourds-2021/
Biography
Alan Phelan (born 1968 Dublin, Ireland) received BA, Dublin City University, 1989 and MFA, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, 1994 on a Fulbright and John F Kennedy Fund scholarships. He worked at the George Eastman House subsequently and obtained a Certificate in Photographic Preservation and Archival Studies. It was there that he first came cross Joly screens as a small Irish connection in the vast collections of George Eastman Museum. He has exhibited Joly screen photographs at Casino Marino Dublin (2024); Molesworth Gallery Dublin (2021 and 2023); PhotoIreland Festival Dublin (2021 and 2022); Centre CultureI Irlandais Paris (2021); Void Derry (2020); Royal Hibernian Academy Dublin (2020); and The Dock Carrick-on-Shannon (2019). His practice that began in photography has extended into many different media and mediums with a focus on interpretation, language, and collaborations with other artists, writers, and curators. His work has recently been concerned with queer counterfactual temporalities, where histories are revised, recovered and reassembled into artworks and scenarios. Other solo exhibitions include: The Hugh Lane Gallery (2016); Oonagh Young Gallery (2015 and 2013); Golden Thread Belfast (2014); The Black Mariah Cork (2011); Irish Museum of Modern Art (2009); and Mother's Tankstation Dublin (2007). Group exhibitions/projects include: Self-Determination; IMMA (2023); MOE Communal (2023); TONE/TOLD/TEXT/TALK (2022-23), TBGS, RHA, DHG, HLG Dublin and Libairie Yvon Lambert Paris; CCA Derry (2021); Garage Rotterdam (2020); EVA International (2016); Bonn Kunstmuseum (2015); Treignac Projet (2014); Bozar Brussels (2013); Feinkost Berlin (2007); The Whitney Museum of American Art (2004).
Date
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