Stephen Andrews (artist) to his own experience of living with HIV. Andrews’ method of homemade colour separation evokes both the 19th-century painting technique of Pointillism: “in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image”, and the Ben-Day dots of mechanical printing. Beyond these references, Andrews’ uses the technique to, at the same time, evoke the alchemy of vision and break its mechanics down. As a result, Andrews creates works that “hover at legibility.” “The pixilation or dot matrix completely obscures details, making specifics impossible to see. We can't grasp the full picture.“ The series of rubbed-crayon
Ben-Day dots photographically reproduced as a line cut for letterpress printing, the areas of Ben-Day overlay provided tonal shading to the printing plate. The use of Ben-Day dots was a hallmark of American artist Roy Lichtenstein who enlarged and exaggerated them in many of his paintings and sculptures. Other illustrators and graphic designers have used enlarged Ben-Day dots in print media for a similar effect. Ben-Day dots The Ben-Day dots printing process, named after illustrator and printer Benjamin Henry Day, Jr., (son of 19th Century publisher Benjamin Henry Day) is a technique dating from 1879. Depending on the effect, colour and optical