Telomere 1–4

Dean describes Telomere 1­–4 as a ‘found mark project’, where she traced, copied, and accumulated scratches over the course of more than a year to create a series of four prints. She found the word ‘telomere’, which are the sections at the end of a chromosome, when she searched “attrition through accumulation” on the internet. As cells divide in the ageing process, the telomeres get shorter.

Working with BORCH Editions, Tacita Dean built the textural depth of the prints over an extended period of time, seeing in the marks the potential for other narratives. The base texture of the prints was created using images of a metal ramp from the artist’s gallery in Paris, which had accumulated numerous incidental marks of wear and tear. Adding collaged paper cut-outs, screen-printed motifs and colour directly applied onto the plates, Telomere 1–4 continued to collect history, in a way not dissimilar to the metal ramp that was their origin.

Each of the four Telomere prints consists of three layers: the first layer is printed in black from a photogravure plate combining a very high-resolution photographic image of the marks and scratches on the metal ramp, combined with Tacita Dean’s hand-made tracings and drawings. The second layer consists only of hand-made marks transferred to a photogravure plate (direct gravure), printed in a range of colours. In the final layer, a selection of hand-made marks was screen-printed onto the surface of the prints with glossy ink.

Tacita Dean made Telomere 1–4 as part of her exhibition Geography Biography for the Pinault Collection at Bourse de Commerce in Paris 2023.