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Kari Orvik
Millie in the Kitchen, Dark Horse Inn, from the series "Geneva," 2016/2019
Archival pigment print, 18 x 24 inches
Edition 2/8, signed, verso
Framed
Courtesy of the artist
Estimated value: $1,500
Millie in the Kitchen, Dark Horse Inn, is an archival pigment print taken on medium-format color negative and framed in black walnut with Optium plexi. The image is part of the series "Geneva," which was exhibited at SF Camerawork in 2019; a poetic interpretation of place chronicling the neighborhood surrounding my tintype portrait studio in San Francisco’s Outer Mission district. Using multiple formats—from wet plate collodion images on metal, glass, and acrylic to color and digital prints, in this series I have taken a stream-of-consciousness approach to the everyday moments and encounters I’ve had in the neighborhood over the past seven years.
My collaboration with Millie started when she worked as a sous-chef at the Dark Horse Inn, around the corner from my studio. Our discussions about art have led to making portraits over the years, including of her pregnancy, and documenting four generations of women in her family at her grandmother’s home in Berkeley.
Roula Seikaly wrote about this particular image in her November 2019 KQED Arts review of the SF Camerawork exhibition: “The piece visualizes Orvik's interests beyond the tintype process” and “has a composition so beautifully moody it evokes Nighthawks, Edward Hopper's 1942 masterpiece. The two portraits of Millie demonstrate Orvik's commitment to her subjects; her keen understanding of these individuals determines which photographic process (among the many at her disposal) will best portray a scene or a sitter at a given moment.”
About the Artist:
Kari Orvik
Kari Orvik is a photo-based artist and educator, who uses film, historic photographic processes and found materials to engage possibilities of place, material and memory. She explores questions of resilience and fragility in our changing urban and natural environments, through the lens of what we hold onto, what we let go of, and where we place value. Her work has shown at the Oakland Museum of California, the Petersen Museum in LA, the Oslo Fotobok Festival, and is in the permanent collection of the Berkeley Art Museum. She has been an artist in residence at Recology SF, Rayko Photo Center, and graduate fellow at the Headlands Center for the Arts.
Orvik graduated from UC Berkeley and Stanford University, where she will be teaching photography in Fall 2021. She operates a tintype portrait studio in San Francisco's Outer Mission, the site of her ongoing neighborhood series “Geneva,” which was exhibited at SF Camerawork in 2019.
Website: kariorvik.com
Instagram: @kariorviktintypes
