Anne James on the messages in a new show of lenticular prints

The use of lenticular printing (sometimes known as holography), to create art forms is not one that is widely known or practised, which is surprising given the strong impact images can have and the powerful and unusual way in which they deliver their message.

Lenticular printing allows artists to create images that change when viewed from different angles. This approach pre-dates modern technology, as early as 1692 the French painter G.A. Bois-Clair, was making paintings containing two images by creating a grid of vertical laths at the front which meant that different images were visible depending on whether it was viewed from the left or the right side.

The technology of today’s lenticular imaging uses grew from its use in advert-ising in the US in the 1940s. Subsequent developments meant that by the 1960s it was becoming a familiar if avant-garde methodology as in the famous holograph of the Rolling Stones’ tongue logo.

This exhibition comprises the work of five artists: the majority of the 20 pieces on show are by M. D. Andrews, with images by Igloo, Emma ‘Dex’ Dexter, Robert Munday and Oliver Ashton. Ashton’s Fractal Earth, Infinite Universe uses repeat patterns of gold-green leaves and sinuous branches to create three panels that blend together to mirror a tree’s canopy as viewed from underneath and a series of patterns that appear to extend to infinity, beyond the boundaries of the piece itself. Igloo’s Silent Spring is a formalised angular tree which celebrates a range of colours.

Dexter’s Universal Cabaret 2 is an explosive wall-hung piece in which she explores ‘contemporary capitalist society and habits of consumption’. She uses found objects and optical illusions, including a pattern of scissors, to create a cage, sharply defining the global pattern of greed created by ‘propaganda and political exploitation’.

Munday’s HM Queen Elizabeth II will be familiar. In 2003/04 Munday was commissioned by the Jersey Heritage Trust, to create the only holographic portrait of the Queen. The commission marked the island’s 800-year allegiance to the Crown. Munday said his aim was to create a starkly accurate and perhaps even shockingly realistic portrait of the monarch in a style never before seen or even allowed in the style of his ‘true’ laser holographic portraits while maintaining a sense of splendour. In 2011 Munday was further commissioned to create both a holograph of the Queen on the Jersey £100 note and a stamp: the first stamp to have a holograph. Alongside Munday’s portrait hangs M. D. Andrews’ rather more equivocal approach to the monarchy: Twilight of the Empire — a composite made up of partial images of the Queen, The Prince of Wales, The Duke of Cambridge and a Canadian Indian Chieftain. The piece was created to commemorate Andrews’ view of the decline of the monarchal sovereignty in former British territories over the Queen’s reign, by combining dynastic images of mother and grandmother with son and grandson and the regalia of a ruler from a very different tradition.

Much of Andrews’ work is representat-ional as in The Incident Series, a block of four images comprised of four smaller images, all unrelated and each sourced from the web. Andrews intends the seemingly random juxtapositions of the images to create personal responses from each person who sees them.

IDOL WAR presents what Andrews describes as ‘a modern-day Bayeux Tapestry’, featuring scanned images of the prelude to and subsequent events of the Iraq War. The opening square chants alternatively ‘All we are saying is Give peace (or Give war) a chance’. Embedded in are the image of a missile attack that transposes into a young boy, his head bandaged and both arms missing, lying defenceless. The series also includes portraits of the war’s instigators; Blair and Bush. Tanks are juxtaposed with prisoners and there are a number of images of an impassive Saddam, that speak loudly throughout the piece.