Carinna Parraman


Director of the Centre for Print Research

Professor Carinna Parraman is Professor of Colour, Design and Print, and Director of the Centre for Print Research. As Director of CFPR, she leads a cross-disciplinary research team comprising scientists and technologists, designers, artists, and researchers.

She is co-leader of an £7.7m Expanding Excellence in England (E3) fund, exploring the future of printing and fabrication, new ways of thinking and working, alongside traditional methods of making. The fund is enabling Carinna and the team to re-envision the Centre’s direction, its long-term strategy, working with industry to undertake cutting-edge research.

Professor Parraman is a member of University Academic Board; the Arts, Creative Industries and Education Faculty Executive; and sits on the Faculty Knowledge Exchange, Health, Safety and Wellbeing, and Research Ethics Committees. She is an advocate for the City of Bristol – working with the School of Art and Design to forge new partnerships across Bristol, including Arnolfini, Spike Island, and Bristol City Council.

Outside of the University, associations and committees include: Imaging Science and Technology USA, Association Internationale de la Couleur (AIC), Colour Group Great Britain. She is chair of IMPACT international multidisciplinary printmaking conference.

She contributes articles to Printmaking Today, and presents at Impact Multidisciplinary printmaking conference, IS&T’s Electronic Imaging conference, Colour Imaging Conference, Printing for Fabrication. Working with Dr Maria V. Ortiz Segovia, they co-authored ‘2.5D Printing: Bridging the Gap Between 2D and 3D Applications’, published by John Wiley and Sons Ltd. (2018).

Professor Parraman is keynote for IS&T’s Printing for Fabrication (2020); workshop lead for Colour Imaging Conference on: Colour in Art (2020), invited speaker for The Imaging Conference Japan (2019); APPAMAT – Material Appearance Workshop, Sorbonne University, Paris (2019); and Guanlan Print Forum, Printmaking Collections in Public Art and Institutes, Guanlan, China (2018).

Since 1999, she has achieved external grant income totalling £11.5M, including: UK research councils, EU, contract research, match-funding through collaborative research, and sponsorship. Recent large external awards include: (2019-2022) Research England, Expanding Excellence (E3) Value £7.7Million; (2018-22) Appearance Printing – European Advanced Research School, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018). Value 4,309,911.72 Euros – consortium Co-I and scientist in charge of WP4 and WP6; (2012-15) Marie Skłodowska-Curie Initial Training Networks (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-ITN): Colour Printing 7.0: Next Generation Multi-Channel Printing.  Value £2,094,288 – Project Lead.

Research Interests:

Professor Parraman is a specialist in colour printing and Red-Green-Blue (RGB) pigment printing; 2.5D or texture printing; photomechanical methods for image making; new creative approaches for inkjet printing; photomechanical print history; the appearance of colour and materials and how these are captured and reproduced in paintings and photographs; colour theory and perception within the fields of fine art, design and industry, and in particular the craft of the digital. Her professorial lecture, hosted by Arnolfini, was an articulation of her practice, and distillation of her research career.

She has collaborated with global industrial and HEI partners in the fields of colour science, museum conservation, manufacturing and, art and design. Her body of work has attempted to address a significant need for research, instruction and innovation in the European printing industry by training a new generation of printing scientists who will be able to assume science and technology leadership in this traditional technological sector.

Her published research is highly-cited by academics and industry leaders and is widely disseminated through participatory research, contribution to policy-making fora.

Qualifications:

  • 2009 PhD ‘The Development of Alternative Colour Systems for Inkjet Printing’, UWE, Bristol
  • 1993-1995 MA Printmaking, Camberwell School of Art, University of the Arts, London
  • 1986-1989 BA (Hons) Fine-Art Printmaking & Art History, Winchester School of Art, Southampton University

Teaching:

Professor Parraman’s work on colour printing has led to longstanding teaching collaborations via EU Marie Curie funded networks for doctoral education.  The Appearance Printing European Advance Research School (2019-23) formed a pan-European training school for internationally excellent PhD students, collaborating across the arts, science and technology, building skills for the next generation of early stage researchers via a consortium of HEI and industry partners. Colour Printing 7.0 (2011-14) formed a pan-European training school, bringing together internationally excellent PhD students, early career and post-doctoral researchers researching CMYK+ and the colour printing sciences. The CREATE (Colour Research for European Advanced Technology Employment) project was established through the European Union, Framework 6 Marie Curie Conferences & Training Courses funding programme (2007-11)  to enable experts from a range of backgrounds to facilitate exchange through participation, teaching, practice, dialogue and collaboration to train a new and emerging generation of researchers to consider colour from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

She has supervised 12 PhD students through to completion.

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