A Behind the Scenes Look at the Process of
Preparing Artwork for Professional Presentation

The process of preparing Kambani's artwork for presentation is a tedious one. The work is transported from Africa in raw canvas form, rolled up and packaged carefully to avoid damage. On arrival in London, it is declared at customs and tax is paid on its estimated value.  

Once cleared, it is taken home and serialised. Chima then takes pains to carefully photograph each peace professionally by mounting it on particle board and displaying it to absorb natural light. Digital images are then taken. Once picture taking is complete, the images are then loaded onto the computer and a proof sheet of images is produced which is then used to match against each picture name and artist. These are recorded on the proof sheet and then entered into the computer.

It is important to note that this is why details are required on the backs of each painting to enable this process occur efficiently

Once the details have been entered against the pictures, this information is then saved on the computer for use in developing the website. It is also used in producing information sheets for each exhibition and schedules of work for reference.

The next step in ensuring work is made ready for exhibition is the framing process. Initially Chima started out by doing the entire process by himself. His home was turned into a temporary workshop to facilitate this. Thank God for having a patient wife. Chima bought electronic cutting tools, electronic saws, edging saws, joining tools, clamping tools, set squares etc. These were all used to cut wood to adequate frame size and then to join them together. After making frames in this way, Chima would then have to stretch the work onto the frames using professional stretching clamps and a staple gun.

If a painting did not have sufficient edging to enable stretching, Chima would have to painstakingly cut them down to size and re-mount them on primed canvas, an expensive, time consuming and avoidable process.

Mounting is difficult as you have to lay it precisely using glues that can be used on canvas, usually PVA. Unfortunately PVA has the tendency to sometimes warp the painting as the mounting canvas is invariably of a different absorption strength to that of the original image. This then means that you have unsightly bubbles under the surface of the image. This is not professional.

Chima then resorted to using mild adhesives that bonded almost instantly. The only problem with this is the uncertainty of how long such a bond will last and whether it will corrode the canvas at a later date. The last thing you want is an unsatisfied customer returning in anger and demanding a refund because their painting has weathered and become damaged. At that point the artist would have been paid and it will be Chima’s responsibility to satisfy such demands. To this aim;

Paintings without a minimum of 8cm excess at the edge can no longer be accepted  unless it is agreed that some of the image will be
lost whilst framing

Another problem is also the issue of poor quality canvas. This is often hard to stretch for fear of tearing. Chima empathises with the plight of African artists and realises that lack of finance contributes greatly to the materials an artist resorts to using. The framing process is a long and cumbersome one. After the “Images of Africa” exhibition, Chima had to frame over 100 art pieces, many of them needing re-mounting, the rest requiring re-touching at the edges with white acrylic to make them clean and presentable.

In some cases, the edges of artwork have to be treated with extreme care and in the case of the picture on the left, additional edges were stitched onto the canvas to enable it be stretched properly. After re-touching, all artwork (except the paper work) had to be stretchered professionally and displayed in the gallery or stored.

Art work was prepared in two phases, 52 pieces at a time. By the time the 2^nd phase was ready to be done, Chima had negotiated the help of Epping Studio galleries and was given permission and taught how to use their professional framing equipment pictured here. This saved a huge amount of time and effort on clamping and gluing and Chima is extremely grateful to the generosity of Trevor Krueger of Epping Studios for this help. It also saved an untold amount of money.

The guillotine as I call it is for precision cutting of wood in bevelled edge form which is ideal for ensuring a clean and professionally edged joint. This piece of equipment (see pictures on the right and below) has very sharp blades and one must use extreme caution when cutting wood with it.

The hydraulic stapler, (above) is then used to join the frame pieces together after the application of wood glue (photo 4). The frame is then ready to be used to stretch the work – simple, but bear in mind that Chima made over 100 frames and braced them in the middle if supporting large pictures.

As you can imagine, all this work is very time consuming, but not as bad as the times before Epping Studio galleries. In future Kambani hopes to pay Epping Studio for the use of their framer to perform all this work. This will take a huge amount of pressure off Chima to free him up for the more constructive process of networking and selling of art work. Nonetheless, Chima is very happy to have been exposed to gaining such experience and it has helped create awareness of the pitfalls involved in framing work properly.