About Time and The Subjects of My Work

About the exhibition

“My recent works have focused on the twigs and branches revealed under the melting snow. They can be thought of as reflecting the passage of time. The dried branches show nature’s own trace of the end of growth and the arc of life. It seems that the branches on the slope increase year by year with the storms. They are a sign of the change that is taking place. The branches revealed by the slope are part of the wistful beauty of nature’s picture book.

My work is executed as an art print, using the mezzotint technique. It is a technique I am particularly familiar with and love. I have used it to create most of my work. Working with mezzotint requires a lot of patience and a lot of time.

I compare the camera obscura to the making of my graphic tiles. In it, the roughened tile depicts a black space. By retouching the roughened tile with black ink, I create a completely
black print, black space. To outline the subject, I smooth the roughened plate, bringing light into the dark space. The more I flatten the tile, the less it absorbs the ink, giving a lighter print. Gradually, images begin to emerge from the blackness of the space. The process can be likened to what happens in our minds, as our eyes and imagination gradually begin to discern something out of the darkness. Over time, they make the darkness the projection of our mind.

– Antti Salokannel