It’s one thing to allow paint to streak and drip down a canvas, but photographer Ben DeHaan creates the same trickling technique with photographs for his series titled Uncured. The photographer’s portraits in the mind-boggling series seem as though they are melting right before your very eyes. How does he do it? It’s actually created with an ordinary printer missing one key step.
Traditional printers treat the image they are reproducing onto paper with UV light, a process that allows UV sensitive inks (typically used in commercial digital printing) to dry instantaneously and avoid messy blots and smudges. DeHaan says, “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 artist goes on to explain his process: “The images are printed uncured and flat, then positioned vertically allowing the ink to run. The images are not digitally manipulated but are rather representations of different moments during the process.” What naturally occurs to the portraits when sat upright is like an unfortunate mutation, which can be seen in these gifs. More from this series can be seen on DeHaan’s site where he also includes time lapsed videos for each piece.
