Helen Mitchell – Tattoo Collectors
http://photospacegallery.weebly.com/2013-helen-mitchell.html
Tattoo Collectors is the second installment of Mitchell's ongoing survey of Tattoo in Aotearoa and is comprised of thirty large format
studio portraits of twenty-four subjects recorded on a traditional 4"x5" film camera system.
Mitchell has been photographing Tattoo since 2006, resulting in the previous exhibition Portraits of Ink at Photospace Gallery in 2012 that focuses on documenting the tattoo renaissance within New Zealand society.
Portraits of Ink focused exclusively on subjects whose tattoos were acquired in the Auckland region. The current exhibition Tattoo Collectors relocates this focus to the subjects of Wellington tattooists.
Tattoos appear to function as objects of transformation for the contemporary wearer, Mitchell's images engage with
questions around the construction of personal identity and cultural exchange.
The third and final installment of this project is currently scheduled for 2014 when Mitchell will photograph tattoo in
the South Island to produce an exhibition and publication that surveys tattoo throughout New Zealand.
Academic and photographer Helen Mitchell has an extensive background photographing in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Currently
Mitchell lectures in photography at Massey University's Wellington campus where she co-ordinates the Photography major
for the Whiti o Rehua School of Art.
Previously she has explored landscape in the Central Plateau and Kaimanawa regions, resulting in a number of exhibition
including The Volcanic Zone at The Dowse Art Gallery 1995. Mitchell has examined colonial connections through her photography in the exhibition L’en jeu du jeu - Playing the Game at Musée de la ville de Nouméa 2010 and CapitalE Wellington 2011. She has also explored cross-cultural and
post-colonial identity and its expression in the Hong Kong tattoo scene resulting in the exhibition Shifting Identity at Photospace Gallery 2012.
ENDS