Mezzotints & Videos

"…in the tension between light and dark is the power of the universe."

—Peter Matthieseen, The Snow Leopard

…and, I would add, without the darkness of night, we would not see the stars.

I first discovered the sensuous blacks and subtle grays of the Mezzotint when I was in my early twenties. At the time, there were few people practicing this archaic engraving technique, which was invented in the 17th century, but was nearly lost with the advent of photography.

This extraordinarily time consuming process, while laborious to some, is meditative and highly satisfying to me. Using only the pressure of my hand on the scraping tool, I can imbue simple still life objects - drapery, tools, a shell - with a reserved strength and beauty that I obtain in no other medium. Light and shadow have the power to transform the seemingly immutable. Somewhere along the way psychological states of mind reveal themselves, and our outer and inner worlds connect.

*Six Fruiting Bodies, 9” x 14”, multi-plate mezzotint engraving with 6 mushrooms, 2023*

Vanishing II: Rusty Patched Bumblebee, 3"x 3", hand-colored mezzotint

Vanishing X: Monarch Butterfly, 3" x 11", hand-colored mezzotint

Vanishing IV: Valley Elderberry Long-Horned Beetle, 3" x 3", hand-colored mezzotint

Vanishing III: Delta Green Ground Beetle, 3" x 3", hand-colored mezzotint

VanishingVI: Red-winged Grasshopper 3" x 3"; hand-colored mezzotint

Vanishing II: American Burying Beetle, 3"x 3", hand-colored mezzotint

Vanishing V: Smith's Blue Butterfly, 3" x 3", hand-colored mezzotint

Vanishing XI: Bay Checkerspot Butterfly, 3"x 3", hand-colored mezzotint

MORE ABOUT HOLLY DOWNING’S MEZZOTINT ENGRAVINGS

When I first saw a book reproduction of a mezzotint engraving in a printmaking class as a college senior, I was captivated by the rich blacks and subtle grays - the chiaroscuro of the Old Masters, who I revered. I wanted do that for myself. While I didn’t know what I was doing (mezzotint engravings were out of fashion and no one knew how to actually make them anymore), I persisted.

There were no text books to explain the method of plate rocking to prepare the copper plate for an image, and printmaking teachers didn’t know how to do this archaic technique. But while living in England, and with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to research mezzotints, I finally got invaluable help from an elderly mezzotint reproduction engraver, Lawrence Josset, who had learned from the famous English printmaker Frank Short. I began to find a meditative solace in preparing the copper plate, by roughing it with a mezzotint rocker over many weeks and hours of labor.

With only the pressure of my hand on a scraping tool, I found I could scrape light and out of the velvety black create an image, embedded with soul. Usually the images were of humble objects - a bowl, eggs, drapery, tools, mushrooms, a shell, a scallop squash, but also stars, sand dunes, a foggy sky. I found that only this particularly difficult and time-consuming technique gave me the result I wanted. I was totally seduced!