On Friday, 30 August, photo art from visual artist Marcel van Luit was unveiled right in the middle of the Marrum ‘paardendobbe’ (a hollow, crescent-shaped island where horses ‘paarden’ can stand when the water gets a bit high). Van Luit’s work is part of the paardendobbe walking route – a collaborative initiative from Sense of Place, It Fryske Gea and the village trust of Marrum – and tells the story about the 150 horses that got stranded on the edge of the small, thin island edge in 2006, after a heavy storm flooded the plain and cut off their path to dry land.

The Marrum horses

 “At the end of December 2018, a 7-kilometre walking route behind the sea dyke has been carved out in Marrum,” tells Wendy Gooren of Sense of Place. “The route brings the story of the Marrum horses – and the unique rescue performed by 6 female equestrians – to life, directly in the landscape. The artwork at the middle of the Ozingadobbe forms the final piece of this project. You can only view it from the edge of the dobbe, the artwork is not visible from afar, and it is integrated beautifully into the very landscape.”  

An artwork in the water

The artwork was designed by Marcel van Luit and printed by Wilcovak with an Epson SC F7100 on our Jetcol® DHS paper and then transferred onto approximately 20 ChromaLuxe® panels. These panels were then affixed onto an aluminium support structure. The 2-tonne colossus was then mounted directly in the dobbe. At Coldenhove, we have made a short film to capture the production process.

Wilcovak, satisfied customer of Coldenhove

Our client, Wilcovak, has been active in the print market for many years, focusing primarily on serving artists and photographers. Wilcovak started in 1979 by gluing photos with the image side behind plexiglass (Diasec®). A few years ago, the company expanded its product range to include photos mounted on aluminium ChromaLuxe® panels, in order to offer its customers a more complete range.  

Previously, Wilcovak had worked with two competing paper companies. In the end, they switched to Jetcol® DHS sublimation transfer paper, a product on which Wilcovak had originally collaborated with Coldenhove during Jetcol® DHS development.  

Erik Stoffers, director at Wilcovak, explains that the company was struggling with dark prints from competing paper companies. The high ink quantity required for the realisation of dark prints caused cockling in the competitors' paper.

One of the reasons Wilcovak had switched to Jetcol® DHS was the high gram weight of the paper (120 gsm), which meant that the paper could handle those high amounts of ink without causing cockling.

Although cockling doesn't have to be a problem when the printhead is placed higher above the paper, in many cases this solution is not the right one. The higher the print head is above the paper, the hazier the print, and therefore the end result. Unacceptable for Wilcovak.

“The sublimation transfer paper that we use must be heavy paper. Jetcol® DHS can absorb more moisture. Something that is essential for a sharp, dark print where high ink quantities must be applied. With competing paper, we saw that light prints remained nice and flat but the dark prints often left wrinkles in the paper. Now that we have switched to Jetcol® DHS, we no longer suffer from these problems," says Stoffers.

A second reason why Wilcovak now works with Jetcol® DHS is the elasticity of the paper. “The moment we sublimate, the ChromaLuxe® panels expand significantly due to the high temperatures during the transfer. Because competing paper had little or sometimes no give, transfer onto large panels often resulted in ghosting at the corners of the panels. But we are highly satisfied with the elasticity of Jetcol® DHS paper; the ghost effect is prevented. Something that is very important to Wilcovak. Precisely because our customers have high quality requirements, we want to be able to offer a sharp print from edge to edge. 

“Wilcovak is in possession of the largest sublimation press, which means that we are the only company that can completely sublimate entire sheets of 4 x 8 feet. That’s a whopping 122 x 244 cm.” According to Stoffers, “Jetcol® DHS is indispensable when working with these large sizes.”