The Age of Infinite Copies
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You see the term "Giclée" thrown around a lot. It sounds terribly fancy, doesn't it? French, sophisticated. In reality, it’s a marketing term for a high-end inkjet print. A very, very good inkjet print, mind you, using archival inks and lovely paper. But it's still a digital reproduction. The artist creates the work on a computer, hits 'print', and the machine sprays microscopic dots of ink onto paper to replicate the image. The thousandth print is an identical clone of the first.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But it's a different beast entirely from what happens in a print studio. It’s a reproductive process, not a creative one. The "art" happened on the screen; the printing is just the output.
When the Process is Part of the Art
Now, think about screen printing. This isn't about copying an image; it's about building it, layer by painstaking layer. Each colour is a separate physical screen, a separate stencil. I'm not just clicking a button. I'm mixing the ink to get the exact hue, checking its consistency, flooding the screen, and then physically pulling the squeegee across the mesh with just the right pressure and speed.
This is where the magic is. It’s a performance.
Every single print in an edition has been individually made. There are tiny, almost imperceptible variations that prove a human was there. A slight difference in ink deposit, the texture of the ink sitting proud on the paper's surface. These aren't flaws. They are the fingerprints of the process. You're not buying a copy of my work; you're buying one of the multiple originals I created in a single, finite run. It's a crucial distinction in the art world.
An Edition That Actually Means Something
This brings us to the idea of a "limited edition." With a digital print, a limit is an artificial choice. An artist could decide to print 50, but there's nothing stopping them from printing 500 more identical ones next year if they sell out. The technology allows for infinite replication.
A screen print edition is limited by physics. The mesh on the screen gets stretched, the stencil begins to break down after repeated pulls, inks run out. The edition size is a genuine reflection of the physical constraints of the craft. When I say an edition at Oli Fowler Art is limited to 100, it’s because that’s how many high-quality prints the screen would give me before it was knackered. It creates genuine scarcity, and that’s a massive part of what gives a print its long-term value.
So next time you're looking to buy art, ask yourself what you're really paying for. Is it a perfect digital photograph of a piece of art? Or is it an authentic, hand-pulled print that is a piece of art in its own right? One is a picture of the meal; the other is the meal itself. There’s a world of difference.
Feel the difference for yourself. Have a look at the real deal, with all its tactile, vibrant glory, over in the store.