Passaggio I

Holly Downing

The theme of passageways has been one that Holly Downing has revisited throughout her career, in particular in the two series Peruvian Portal and Passaggio. In the latter, she observes the early stone architecture of Europe that leads a traveler from one viewpoint to another: from an interior to an exterior, or from one main arterial street to another through an alleyway. Passageways often indicate change; in Downing’s softly rendered mezzotints, capturing the gradual contrast of light and shadow, she invites the viewer to wonder what is on the other side - what, if possible, will change when they’ve passed through the passaggio

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Mezzotint is a form of engraving, whose subtle qualities are achieved with tone rather than line. The artist spends many hours “rocking” a copper plate until the plate has thousands of tiny holes, each with a bit of raised burr that hold a tremendous amount of ink. A fully rocked plate prints a lush, velvety black, unparalleled in any other medium. To obtain an image, the artist scrapes the surface of the plate, variously lowering the levels of the burrs so they will hold less ink and thereby yield gradations of dark and light. Gradually an image emerges out of the darkness. The plate is inked by hand and printed on an etching press.

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