Fine Art Printer Of The Year 2012

Marvel Graphic Studio (Ahmedabad)

Tel: 91-79-26870256 / marvelartgallery@gmail.com

Ahmedabad-based Marvel Graphic Studio has for the second successive time excelled in this form of print. Marvel won the Fine Art Printer of the Year Award for printing of art works: Curiosity Kills the Cat, a collection of playing cards aimed at creating curiosity among the people of life, game and art; artist Ratan Parimoo’s water-colour painting titled ‘Vegetable market’, 54 year old work and Boats in Srinagar, water colour on paper done in 1958; and artist Thota Vaikuntam’s acrylic on canvas.

According to Marvel, the process to print – Curiosity Kills the Cat took four months, which included concept, die-cutting, separation and other detailed process. Printing 250 sets of cards (54 cards per set) took 60 days. There are over eight to nine colours/screens per card and the paper used in this serigraph is Somerset Satin White of 300gsm.

The judges felt that it’s the genuine craftsmanship that made the entries so stunning. And the craftsmanship in serigraphy, that of creating stunning realistic images in colour and tone using screen printing, was also made its mark with the another three limited edition work sent by Marvel.

“Bringing the atmosphere alive was itself very challenging,” says Dhanvi Shah, director at Marvel. The art was created in 1958 with a very unique style of painting, where the artist first applied the colour where he wished and then drew the linear lines instead of drawing lines and then filling in the colours. “That was the tricky part; to bring that same linearity in order to maintain that identify of the artist,” says Shah. The 80 edition work was produced in 40 days (with separation and printing) and used over 32 tones of colours/screens.

“This print was fun for us,” says Shah while describing artist Thota Vaikuntam’s work. “We had to change our style of treating the print as this serigraph demanded us to serve it with flat colours,” he says. Here too Marvel used 27 tones of colour/screens for 75 editions, which was printed in 50 days.

Commended       

Jak Printers (Mumbai)
Silverpoint Press (Mumbai)
Spectrum Scan (Vasai)
Prodon Enterprises (Mumbai)
Vishwakala Printers (Bengaluru)
Replika Press (Sonepet)