Line Addition was the first editioned work in holography by Pepper, as part of a series of three pieces produced during the mid-1980s in London.
In 1982, Pepper had returned from a two-year Fulbright Scholarship at the Museum of Holography, New York. It was during his residency in the city that he was taught the practical aspects of holography by artists Dan Schweitzer and Sam Moree at New York Holographic Labs in Manhattan.
Although he recognised the potential of the process in connection with his previous work with projected light, and wanted to continue investigating holograms, he did not have a laser or optical studio of his own, so formed a collaboration with Light Fantastic Ltd, which at the time had a gallery in London’s Covent Garden and was a leading manufacturer of holograms.
Title: The Addition Series
Date: 1984-86
Size: Each 25.4 x 20.32cm ( 10 x 8 inches)
Materials: Reflection hologram on glass
Edition: Unlimited, no longer in production
Produced in association with Light Fantastic, London
Collection: Private and public
My relationship with Light Fantastic was much like a printmaker’s relationship with a more traditional printing house.
A ‘proof’ hologram was made by Light Fantastic at their Shepshed production facility; adjustments to the object, holographic recording setup, lighting, and positioning would be suggested and further ‘proofs’ produced until the desired visual and dimensional groundwork was achieved.
The approved hologram would then be editioned and sold via the London gallery.
I ‘drew’ on each plate by applying graphic white lines by hand before each piece was framed and made available for sale – a personal, graphic, ‘signature’, each microscopically unique.
Andrew Pepper, 1995
Line Addition
First Edition
As part of the collaboration, Pepper designed a number of holograms. He made the physical objects, sculptures, and structures required for each recording, and specified visual-dimensional layouts and object lighting.
Light Fantastic would then make the master holograms and white-light viewable editions at their extensive holography facility in Shepshed, UK. These were then exhibited and sold at their London gallery.
Line Addition was the first in this collaboration and developed directly from Random Cube Rotation, an earlier installation with animated and projected light, originally exhibited as part of Pepper’s Master of Fine Art degree show at the University of Reading, UK.
The aim of this reworking was to develop the graphic and kinetic aspects of the original sculptural installation within a holographic volume.
This is probably the best-known early work in the Pepper/Light Fantastic collaboration.
Line Addition is held in numerous public and private collections and has been exhibited internationally.
There is a direct link to the teachings of the German Bauhaus, which Pepper had studied as part of the contextual and art history elements of his Fine Art degree course.
These foundational concepts explored in the Bauhaus art movement were detailed by Wassily Kandinsky in his influential book Point and Line to Plane.
Lars Müller Publisher
Point and Line to Plane
Bauhaus Edition 9
Author(s): Wassily Kandinsky
Edited by Walter Gropius, László Moholy-Nagy (original series), Lars Müller (English edition) in collaboration with Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung
Design: Herbert Bayer (original German edition)
18 × 23 cm, 7 × 9 in
208 pages, 129 illustrations
Hardback
Point Addition
