Antti Salokannel (b. 1950, Lahti, Finland) is a finnish printmaker, best known for his graphic art made in the mezzotint technique. Since the early 1970's Salokannel's work has been shown in numerous private and joint exhibitions and his works are included in different collections, i.e. Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma and Sara Hildèn Museum in Finland, Aine and Wihuri foundations, as well as at the Alberta Collection in Vienna and the collection of the National Museum in Oslo. Besides his artistic work Salokannel has been a lecturer of graphic art at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, dean of Lahti Institute of Fine Arts and the principal lecturer in Lahti Institute of Design and Fine Arts in Lahti University of Applied Sciences. He has also been appointed to many positions of responsibility at different artists’ associations and state art organisations through the years.

Light and Image

Long stages of mezzotint technique, especially roughening the copper plate with a rocker, can be backbreakingly monotonic work.

However, personally I take roughening as a very rewarding stage in the process. During the lingering stage I have time for my own thoughts as well as for a motif of the upcoming image to develop. I feel that roughening is a kind of a ritual of transition from one stage of matter to another. It could possibly be compared to something that a painter experiences when preparing the canvas or perhaps it's got something in common with a sportsman when he's warming up for the actual performance.

A plate roughened with care will give printing result with black as deep as the night. Thus, an image is brought up by scrapening down a coarse, roughened surface of a plate.

In my mind this assimilates with the media of camera obscura. In this comparison the roughened plate represents the dark room, whereas scrapening down, or polishing, is about bringing the light in. Gradually during the process, things begin to emerge from the blackness, while some will remain out of light. There's something similar in this moment with when one’s eyes are starting to get accustomed in to the dark by trying to differentiate things from it.

The eventual graphic print is a mirror image. Likewise is the projection, formed in the rays of light that summons reflections into the "dark room".