Artist Statement

The subject of my art is, almost exclusively, related to locations and people in areas of the world that preserve their historic connotations. Most of such places are in the developing world or in area where the fast moving progress is not arrived yet. Cultural minorities are also part of my photographic research. My intent is, besides reclaiming artistic the beauty and intensities of such places and people, helping in preserving them and honoring them trough photography

Biography

Mantinieri is a Fine Art photographer. He lives and performs his art in the Southern area of Italy called Cilento. He has learned to master the Photographic Arts in the early 80's as a young assistant of a commercial photographer. During those years, he became familiar with the most sophisticated techniques related to the acquisition and the dev elopement of the photographic image on silver based films and papers. He, also, started to get involved into the Photographic Arts in its purest form. From there on, it has been a profound love with fine art Photography and with the process of transferring the image from film on paper. He built a darkroom where he developed and printed his art, while also experimenting and mastering his own techniques. One of his primary goals, besides giving forms to his visions, has been the achievement of the highest quality of the prints. The only medium he used for was fiber based silver halide paper. The prints were produced in his darkroom, where he personally processed the exposed films and made the prints on fiber based silver gelatine paper. Most of his work was purchased by few and very specialized collectors.

 

In recent years, when the digital world was quickly taking over and traditional, high quality silver halides material was becoming almost impossible to find (especially the fine-art, graded papers he was using for his work), Mantinieri decided to abandon his darkroom (that he uses now only for film development) and started experimenting with the intent of finding an alternative process to print his images. He immediately discarded the most common solution available at that time: inkjet printing on inkjet coated papers. Although, with appropriate techniques, the printed image obtained with inkjets was quite appealing, certainly not inferior to the results he usually obtained in the darkroom, the artificial look and feel of the final image with inkjet paper coating was unbearable. Certainly inadequate for fine art masterpieces. Furthermore, he was very concerned with the longevity of the prints themselves.
He extensively researched on the chemicals used in such inks and coatings and was quite unhappy with the findings. Some chemicals, like the vinyl contained in PVA, are not archival at all. Some others, like silica, would absorb moisture, rather than repel it. Finally, the year-long tests he carried on the effect of light on the image and the papers were, also, discouraging.
In many cases the coating was changing color, the OBA become ineffective or the ink was fading. As a consequence, the longevity of the print will be compromised.

It was clear than a different approach was needed to produce collector-grade, fine-art prints.

After almost two years of research, Mantinieri finally perfected the novel process of Carbon-Gelatine printing, fully described in the Techniques page.
Although by far more involved than a simple gicleé print, the resulting artwork has all the requirements of longevity for fine-art: the paper used is fine-art, 100% cotton with no coating with added no chemicals and the ink is made of pure carbon pigments. The gelatine based coating protects the paper and the ink from the pollutant responsible of the deterioration processes.
The unobtrusive semi-gloss appearance of such coating gives to the image extra depth and crispness, with no artificial look, most of the time superior to the traditional silver based prints.

The masterpieces presently offered by Mantinieri in limited editions are now produced almost exclusively with the Carbon-Gelatine printing technique. Only few of them are also produced with the conventional Carbon Ink technique, for those collectors that prefer a completely matte finish of the image.
Mantinieri sells most of his work on a personal basis and, sometimes , through small specialized dealers in Southern Italy. Since 2008, his work is also offered to collectors Worldwide trough the present web site.