London based Alustretch UK Limited manufacture professional artists’ aluminium stretcher bars. Made to measure as a high quality warp free artists painting surface, the stretchers can be stretched with a variety of materials from linen or canvas to projection material.
To complement the stretcher bars Alustretch UK Limited has developed rigid artists surfaces in panel form using Alupanel® aluminium composite panels, from Perspex Distribution Ltd.
The key attributes for an artist’s substrate is to be lightweight and rigid, offering a supremely flat surface. Having experimented with heavier aluminium or wooden panels, Alustretch owner Bruce Stinson has found that the combination of the lightweight core and thin aluminium skin made Alupanel® aluminium composite panels a perfect surface to work with, to create a high quality artists panel.
Alustretch UK Limited supply their high-end stretcher bars direct to the world’s top galleries and artists, so maintaining high quality standard is key, when developing a product more commonly used as a direct print substrate.
The Alupanel® PE painted surface acts as a first primer, it can then be further primed for use with oil paint or acrylics. Alupanel® can also be made as a stretchable panel, by adding a wooden baton at the rear. These are for artists who like a woven surface but like the lightness and rigidity of a panel.
Nowhere is the use of Alupanel® aluminium composite more dramatically illustrated than by artist Frank Fischer. Frank uses Alustretch panels to create his dramatically colourful paintings.
Using gloss paints directly onto Alupanel®, the panels are chosen for their flatness and consistency of surface and rigidity – bringing out the best in Fischer’s work. He explores the history of art by selecting existing works of art, and then recreating the colour spectrum across the width of a work of art one pixel wide.
Using a finely honed process developed by Fischer, gloss paint is repeatedly dripped down the panel creating a sleek appearance. A closer look reveals a row of stalactite like drips at the bottom of the frame, demonstrating the element of chance in the creative process.
To find out more about Alustretch visit www.alustretch.co.uk.
See more artwork by Frank Fischer at www.frankfischer.co.uk.