"Pentimento"
Pentimento For Fenton
Mitch Eckert
Media: Palladium Toned Kallitype on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag Paper – Edition 1/5
Size: 26”h x 24”w
Price: $1600
Artist Statement:
What will future researchers learn about our civilization after it is lost to climate change? Will our trash middens reveal our casual acceptance of single use containers and our dependence on plastics? These are questions I think about as I create paper replicas of our grocery store produce containers. While I arrange still-lifes in the manner of the Dutch Golden Age exploring the notion of memento mori I am thinking not of our own mortality, but that of our planet.
Everlasting Remains of the Eternal Meal is a series of Kallitypes of altered artificial fruit and produce containers recast in paper pulp. The original plastic containers were used to store and transport luscious fruits to my local big box grocery, while the artificial fruit were sourced at a craft shop. Unlike the half-eaten meals in Dutch still-lifes which serve as memento mori or reminders of death, these plastic containers and even the Styrofoam niche I have constructed will never really die and decay, serving instead as reminders of our complicity in the casual destruction and death of our planet.
Working within the tradition of still life presents both challenges and opportunities. I imagine these tableaux as freshly discovered, in a modern equivalent of Pompeii. I craft and control each step of the process: from replicating the plastic food containers in paper pulp and altering the artificial foods; to creating the niche and setting the stage; to sculpting with light while making the photographs. The earthen hues and organic chemical process of the historic photographic Kallitype technique compliments and contrasts the inorganic subject matter depicted. The projected image upon the ubiquitous forms of the produce containers creates a pentimento- a memory of what was once contained within.
Artist Bio:
Mitch Eckert is a one-eyed photographer. The medium of photography chose him, and it made perfect sense – one eye and one lens play well together. He has been viewing the world with one eye since 1979. His work has received many accolades and has been exhibited nationally and internationally and appears in a variety of publications from textbooks to journals. After receiving his B.F.A. in photography and sculpture from Indiana University he went on to earn an M.F.A. from Ohio University focusing on photography and printmaking. His technical knowledge of photography is well rooted in the mediums rich historic processes including his masterful works in Kallitype. For Mitch the choice of photographic equipment, process and materials need to have a good marriage with concept and content. His exploration in the genre of still life has been ongoing for more than 25 years. Other projects revolve around cabinets of curiosities, botanic and formal gardens as well as natural history museums. His work is held in the collections of 21c. Museum, Butler Institute of American Art as well as several corporate and private collections. Mitch Eckert currently lives and works in Louisville Kentucky where he is an Associate Professor of Art teaching all things photographic.
Process:
Kallitype is an iron-silver based process utilizing silver nitrate and ferric oxalate in equal amounts to produce a light sensitive emulsion. Referred to as the “poor man’s platinum and palladium print” the Kallitype can be toned with a variety of precious metals and utilizes the same developer as Platinum printing, but with significantly less cost while maintaining similar tonalities and permanence.
