With his work, Jaya Pelupessy responds to the rapid flow of images with which we communicate via different (digital) media in the contemporary world. In his multidisciplinary practice based on photography, Pelupessy is looking for ways to make the constructions behind our visual consumption visible. His work mainly involves research into technical reproduction processes. The artist deconstructs these processes and reconstructs them in a new way. In photos, installations and film, he looks for a certain delay and a different understanding of the image.

For Manufactured Manual, Jaya Pelupessy developed a new photographic technique, in which he approaches the traditional technique of silkscreen-printing from a photographic perspective. For this project, Jaya uses silkscreen as a ‘canvas’ to directly expose each negative onto it in a different colour-way, thus creating CMYK-photo-collages. In such way, he is transforming a tool, normally used for numerous reproductions, into a singular unique work. It is typical of his working method in which the making process itself – as well as its analysis – become the end result.

In Manufactured Manual, Pelupessy is deconstructing colour and light into the components of CMYK and RGB colour schemes. He has developed his own colour emulsions by adding pigments to transparent silkscreen-printing solutions. The artist applies these self-made emulsions to the silkscreen and exposes it to UV light using a light box. Where the emulsion is exposed to light, it hardens and adheres to the screen – the rest can be washed away with water.

All the silkscreens are built up with multiple exposures and different colours, one over the other. By overlaying the negatives of different images, Pelupessy creates collages. For these new works, he uses found footage from his collection of photography technique books in which photography explains itself. Hands that block out the light, or gradations in light that illustrate a certain shutter speed. The title Manufactured Manual is a direct reference to the archival images taken from the photography manuals. The artist combines these images with contemporary image manipulations used in photoshop such as the clone stamp or brush tools.

Jaya Pelupessy (b. 1989) lives and works in Utrecht. He graduated from the department of photography of the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU) in 2013. Pelupessy’s work is part of such collections as Het Nederlands Fotomuseum, FOAM, Tropenmuseum, Steenbergen Collection and other private collections. His photobook SET-PUT-RUN was one of the Best Photobooks 2016 by the Volkskrant. The collaborative project Traces of the Familiar was shown in Foam 3H and was part of the Back to the Future — the 19th century in the 21st century exhibition shown in Foam, C/O Berlin and Mia Mano House Budapest. Pelupessy was Foam Talent 2019 with his work The Studio Sculptures and he received the K.F. Hein Stipendium in 2020. This Stipendium led to the Manufactured Manual works and his solo show at the Centraal Museum in 2021. Pelupessy was also chosen as one of the 99 photographers for the Gallery of Honour of Dutch Photography in the Netherlands Photo Museum in 2021.