Experimentation: Ultraviolet Pen On Napkins With And Without Primer.
After the sewing experiment, I looked back at the photos I had taken of Naseem Darbey's exhibition, particularly the piece under ultraviolet light. I really like the concept of the piece I make appearing normal under natural light but when under an Ultraviolet light, it has words and confessions scrawled across as a kind of working metaphor for families and what happens underneath the facade we put on. This was proven in my surveys with the questions: 'How do you feel about your family?' followed by: 'Now how do you really feel deep down about your family?'. I found most people needed the push to open up about how they really felt about their families which shows how we're conditioned to put on a front when in actual fact, things aren't always so positive. I want to capture this in whatever I make and I think using UV and playing with the light will allow me to do this.
I kept using napkins instead of tablecloths for the same reasons as before, time being the main one. I initially just wrote on the napkin with the ultraviolet pen out found it came out very faded due to the absorbent quality of the cotton. I then figured I may have to prime the fabric first and after some research into primer, I chose an acrylic Gesso to prime my fabric. After applying the Gesso I let it dry and then drew on it with the pen and used the light, it appears really bright and luminous which is exactly the effect I want. The swatch I used looked better in a darkened room, rather than a well lit one, which made me think about how I can get a space light and then dark if I chose to use this in a final outcome.
After these mini-experiments, I primed a whole napkin and once dried, wrote in as many different styles of writing as I could.l I used different survey answers and little thoughts that popped into my head but the end result looked exactly as I wanted under the Ultraviolet light, bright, confusing and luminous. I really love this as an experiment and I want to develop it further if I can. I kind of want to try asking people five or ten questions and asking them to write the answers in invisible pen and then afterwards ask them to repeat the exercise in biro on a piece of paper or fabric I've yet to decided, to see if they're as honest if they can be seen writing the answers. It would also be nice to get a range of handwriting and that could present a nice kind of crazy mashup that is so relevant to the theme of family.
