KARANJIT PANESAR

This project combined the development and production of a triptych of large, etched steel plates and editioning a supporting series of photogravure intaglio prints.

These works contributed to ‘Furnace Fruit’, Karanjit’s extensive exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery which ran from October 2024 to June 2025. 

You can read more about the exhibition here.

For the steel plates, once processed and prepared, a photosensitive emulsion was used to create a surface resist of photographic content from Karanjit’s family in Punjab. Beautiful images of pomegranate trees were digitally manipulated with a halftone dot, developed on to the steel, then inversely etched in copper sulphate.

The etched surface was sanded and polished to reveal a contrast in the relief metal that subtly depicts the, now heavily processed, photographs. One side of the steel works was additionally electo-plated in bronze, carried out by a separate fabricator.

The photogravure prints feature assemblages Karanjit composed whilst working with photographs from the Archive of Sculptors’ Papers at the Henry Moore Institute. Printed in graphite on handmade, cotton paper.

Visit Karanjit’s website here.

Read more about the exhibition via Karanjit’s interview with Corridor8, Crystal Bennes’ review written for Frieze, and in Roisin Kennan’s review for The State of the Arts.

All exhibition photography (c) Rob Battersby, 2024