an inspirational evening of art conversation
Impressions of an inspirational evening of art conversation at Galerie Agenor in Zürich.
The event started out with a tour through the exhibition where Astrid explained her path into abstract photography through her works. This was followed by the artist talk that was moderated by Ribal Molaeb, owner of Galerie Agenor.
A big thank you to everyone for coming to the event and to Galerie Agnor and Ribal Molaeb for the invitation and hosting the event.
For those that were not been able to participate that evening here are some highlights of the conversation:
Ribal: When did your relationship with the camera start and how did it develop?
Astrid: Photography was always my passion and when ever I went on a trip I put together a little documentary that I shared with my friends. It was a hobby. I had no clue about photography. I was good in putting together a story but had zero understanding about how to operate a camera beside pressing the button to capture an image. I was shooting film but thank god there was already an auto mode otherwise all my images would have been anything else but an image.
It was in 2012 when an email landed in my inbox about a photography trip to Kenya. I never wanted to go to Kenya, too touristy, but my husband always wanted to, so I thought, this is a good compromise, photography and my husband happy to go to Kenya…..
This is when I met Scott Davis, who is an amazing wild life and portrait photographer as well as a photo journalist. Through various trips with him I developed my photography skills in wildlife, portrait and street photography, the tools that are the base to my work now.
Ribal: This exhibition is about China, what is special about the environment in China, which inspired you to create abstract photos there?
Astrid: When I came to Shanghai in April 2014, I did what I always do in a new place, I walked the streets to explore the city and its culture. Very soon I realized there are more things that are catching my eyes than just the bussing and fascinating street life. It was the unique patterns, textures, structures that you can find on facades, doors, or items, that are representing China’s life and culture. So I started to caputer those.
When I started uploading the images on the computer, to do the standard post processing like every photgrapher does, I realized, that in certain materials there are colours that are invisible to the bear eye and only become visible through image sharpening and colour enhancement. So I started to experiment with the sharpness and colour saturation to an extreme that you wouldn’t do in wildlife or portrait photography since it would look fage. But with these patterns I realized that by playing with the sharpness and colour saturation I can create an abstract image where the patterns, structure and or texture is complimented by the colour palette without adding any colours or structure to the image. With this technique I found a way to express my feelings and fascination at that time for Shanghai and China through my images.
Ribal: Can you name one special thing that you learned from your artistic experience in China?
Astrid: There is one thing that I learned in China, which is not necessarily only an artistic experience but certainly influenced my work. This is accepting imperfection, stepping out of my comfort zone experimenting and having no fear to fail. For me being German that is a big thing.
Moving into the artist world as a photo artist is a move into the complete unknown. Abstract photo art is still in discovery. In abstract photo art photography is no longer documentary, it is a medium of expression, like water color, oil paint or acryl, the camera is like the painters brush. It requires rethinking and approaching abstract photo art in the same way like any abstract art piece. Instead of asking what is this, let the emotions and feelings determine whether the art piece is communicating with us, visually listen what it is telling us. The beauty of abstract art is ( and why I like it as a media of expression) that it uses a variety of languages to communicate with each individual.
Ribal: What, in your opinion is most important to highlight while creating abstract photography? What feeling do you want to project?
Astrid: No matter what topic I would like to raise awareness to it is imperative to me to bring the message across with a positive and encouraging spirit. I would like my images to provide energy and a feeling of comfort and wellbeing at the same time. So instead of pointing out the problem, through colors and pattern I visually describe the status, the situation, whatever you would like to call it, where we want or should be, as an encouragement to move towards the goal. Like in series “TOGETHER”. Together is the goal, this is where we want and need to be in order to solve the global challenges that we are facing now.
Ribal: How do you see your work developing in the future? Any new focus ?
Astrid: The topic” together” still occupies my mind. Having had the opportunity to experience how enriching cultural exchange can be I would like to bring awareness to the common grounds in the various cultures, building a cultural bridge between the worlds. This is what I would like to focus my future and ongoing projects on.
