Dark Water (2018)

Christiane Baumgartner’s work employs old and new technologies, using traditional woodcut printmaking techniques to create images based on her own film and video stills. She carefully considers themes of time, flow, motion, stasis and place in her detailed monochrome prints. Earlier works drew imagery from urban environments, warfare and technology, juxtaposing the high speed of modern life with the slow and careful process of woodcut carving: a ‘convergence of speed and standstill’, as the artist describes it. Later works, including this acquisition, focus more closely on natural environments, considering the increasing importance of slowing down and connecting with or longing for the beauty of nature in a fast-paced world. 

Promise, Prometheus I-III, Nordlicht - 6.08pm and Dark Water each explore these moment-to-moment connections with nature and, in particular, the qualities of constantly changing light across land, sea, sky and horizon. Promise captures the moment the sun breaks through a cloud. The triptych Prometheus charts the sun setting at dusk, a reference to the myth of Prometheus and the meeting of fire and water. Nordlicht - 6.08pm is based on a series of photographs that Baumgartner took on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, looking through trees to the north coast at minute-long intervals as the sun is beginning to set, perhaps a reminder to savour each moment as it happens. Dark Water, meanwhile, merges landscape even further with abstraction, describing the ever-shifting surfaces and depths of the sea.

The prints join a strong body of modern and contemporary printmaking held at the University of Salford Art Collection. They support the About the Digital strand of collecting, which includes works made with, or about, digital technology and its wider implications and uses in modern life. They also enhance the current thematic strand of collecting around nature and natural environments, particularly in the context of climate change. Since 2014, the Collection has also worked to increase the representation of women and non-binary artists, from less than 10% historically to over 50% in contemporary collecting and commissioning.

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