shashasha

Failure and accident (and one’s attitude to them) are crucial parts of the creative process. With “Magnificent Failure,” artist Stephen Gill presents a series of accidental artworks created during the printing of another work.

As part of the process of printing on an offset press, paper is occasionally run through the press to warm it up, after a plate change, or to test new ink settings. The paper sheets are usually used several times and then discarded. The images that make up “Magnificent Failure,” however, have been rescued from their junk-bin fate. Produced without intention, the multiple overprints with ink residue have resulted in brilliantly colored amalgamations, unusual compositions, and downright unintuitive clashes—or, in other words, magnificent failures.