fotografie / photograpie
20. March 2022 - 06. June 2022
Loredana Nemes: Greytree and Heavensea
Opening planned for March 20, 2022, 11 a.m.

Some trees. Photo black-white
Loredana Nemes: Graubaum und Himmelmeer
The work Greytree and Heavensea by Loredana Nemes was created over a period of two and a half years on the island of Rügen, a place the artist had chosen as a shelter and retreat. She began photographing the beech trees in the Jasmund National Park and juxtaposes these shots with views of the expanse of the sea. To date she has visited a dozen times in every season. The resulting series will be published in spring 2022 and exhibited for the first time at the Stadthaus Ulm.

Her frequent visits allowed Nemes to become familiar with the beech forest. Always the same paths, always the same beech trees, always the same roots over which she stumbles. And yet many things are new each time: the rapidly changing light by the sea, the winds, the clouds. Nemes' medium format camera translates the elements into subtle nuances of grey.

In her silver gelatin prints the delicate green of May and the bright yellow tones of October are turned into the same shade of grey. A bracket, emphasizing the eternal cycle of the seasons, growth and decay. The abstraction of the black and white technique as well as the portrait format, unusual in landscape photography, focus the viewers gaze on the relationship between the trees, groups and ‘personalities’ and their connection with the adjacent sea.

In her works, Loredana Nemes shows a landscape, ancient and eternal, which hundreds of generations before us were able to experience and others should see in the future: tranquillity, dependability and sturdiness of the beech trees and the sea; the magic of mist, light, and clouds. In all this, a fragility and fleetingness that Nemes' expresses in her photographs.

The artist feels accepted in this landscape, in which all her roles are allowed to fall away from her: ‘Breathing is easier in Sassnitz. A faster light there and the leaves in May, like butterflies on the delicate branches. The ground around the beeches is closer and there is no need to flee. Relax the muscles. Gray trees that know me, because I come from the Carpathian ridge, leaving the land of beeches behind. In Sassnitz, another sea at the edge of the forest. It can't snap at me. It reflects the light and knows all grey. Then we stand on that edge, with arms and branches and roots that grasp and nourish each other, and nothing hurts anymore.’

(Loredana Nemes)

Curator: Dr. Katharina Menzel-Ahr