Mark Sink and Kristen Hatgi - 2009

November 11- December 20, 2009
Opening Reception: Wednesday, November 11th, 5:30-8:30 p.m.

The Robin Rice Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition of photography by Mark Sink & Kristen Hatgi. 

For the last two years Mark and Kristen have collaborated using one of the earliest photographic methods, collodion wet plate to create ambrotypes on glass and tintypes on aluminum. They use a 1860 style view camera to create one-of-a-kind images, which become windows into an intimate, romantic, and beautiful world of faces, still lives, nudes, and landscapes. In this demanding process, the collodion coated tin or glass plates are immersed in a silver nitrate solution, and then they must be exposed in the camera and developed while still wet. Serendipitous flaws and beautiful imperfections are an inevitable part of this imprecise hands-on process.

This show includes a combination of 24 tintypes and ambrotypes, which are 8x10 and smaller in size. Their intimate sizes ask the viewers to look closer and spend more time with these photographs to fully appreciate their power. — A welcome antidote to today's nonstop, -instantaneous imagery. Paradoxically, this intersection of past and present gives these pieces an unmistakably contemporary feel. The two collaborators deliberately play up the ambiguity of time.

The nudes (some recalling E.J. Bellocq's alluring portraits of New Orleans prostitutes in 1912) are suffused with freshness and sensuality, even eroticism at times, with nearly all of them coming off as refined rather than crass.

Fredrick Scott Archer developed the collodion process in 1851. Artists such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll, William Henry Jackson and Civil War photographer Mathew Brady used the process, due to its cost and versatility advantages. In addition Sink and Hatgi’s work can also be seen revived in contemporary artists work such as Sally Mann, Jody Ake, and Scully & Osterman.

Mark Sink, photographer, curator and teacher, has been making a living from fine art photography since 1978. His personal work is in numerous museum collections along with solo and group shows throughout the US, South America, and Europe. Kristen Hatgi received her BFA from the Art Institute of Boston in 2008. She has exhibited her photography in Boston, Washington, DC, and Denver.