Colors and reflections

As in the last three years, I participated also this year in the Ticino Workshop organized by FineartPix. This year’s topic was “all’acqua”, which means «about water». We were a group of five photographers, mentored by the instructors Ferit Kuyas and Markus Zuber. We were working our way down from San Gottardo to Claro close to Bellinzona, the capital of the Canton.

The collection reflects my preparation work for the workshop, as well as the results and some pictures produced after the workshop. I decided, also based on the feedback from the instructors, to continue with the «borders» series. I was mainly fascinated by the hard and soft change of surfaces and colour flows, created by the sky, the environment and the colours of the ground below the waters surface.

The color gradients and abstract reflections on the surface of the water are reminiscent of the works of Abstract Expressionism, or the New York School from the second half of the 20^th century. This loose circle of artists with people like Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning or Jackson Pollock was looking for new ways of expressing their inner constitution. In mostly very large-format works, these artists tried on the one hand spontaneous improvisation with highly dynamic, energetic gestures, as well as a contemplative calm focus on color surfaces.

Interestingly, analogies in particular to color field painting in the reflective surfaces and soft delimitations of my «Borders» series are another example that art, as abstract as it may appear at first glance, very often has an equivalent in nature – and reflects the state of nature pretty much like the abstract works reflect the inner state of the artist.