Behind the scenes with Asha Zero

For his 50ty/50ty artwork Bit Coupon, Asha Zero added another layer of conceptual depth and laborious production to his process. First, he digitally scanned images of his paintings; themselves depicting collages of found images. These were then cut and reassembled as a digital collage and this composite image colour-separated for screen print. Essentially, it’s a screen print of a collage of a painting of a collage.

The image seems to exist somewhere between cycles of translation between pixel and pigment, never quite pinned down by glue, paint or print. This beautifully illustrates Zero’s preoccupation with images as “hybrid memes of read/write culture” – where the splicing, juxtaposition and remix of cultural information has become the norm of contemporary expression [Shane de Lange interview].

Interestingly, the final result is reminiscent of a print magazine aesthetic – a testament to how accurately the artist paints each printed dot of the original found images.

Bit Coupon is a special edition print – limited to 25 editions instead of the usual 50. Purchase the print here.