Artist
Tessa MacKay
Work
Tessa MacKay, Trev. Oil on canvas, 300 x 300cm .
Project
To do justice to this stunning hyperrealistic painting for the purpose of large print reproduction, I knew I needed a lot of resolution, not to mention a faithful representation of colour and tonality. At first glance, this work may appear to be a photograph; it is on closer inspection that reveals the artist's mastery through her brush strokes. To show the individual brushstrokes in this enormous 3x3m work, we needed huge resolution.
My approach was to combine over 70 images of the canvas together using specialised software. The final graded master file can be printed at full reproduction size at 300 DPI. That's half a billion pixels. This amount of detail shows every little texture of paint and brush marks - something that no camera could do in one shot, but essential to showcase the artist's touch on close inspection and to serve as an archival master file, preserved forever digitally.
