FROZEN LIGHT - MANDRY, CONLEY & KAPPELER: ST. MORITZ, SWITZERLAND

THE ENGADINE IN THE WORKS OF DOUGLAS MANDRY, JEFFREY CONLEY & SIMONE KAPPELER

With the exhibition FROZEN LIGHT, Bildhalle returns to the Engadine. The cold, the light, the colors: three artists have created works that could not be more different, but all deal with the visual and climatic characteristics that shape the essence of the Engadine. For the glass sculptures from his latest series „Gravity Flow", Swiss artist DOUGLAS MANDRY (CH) has scanned glacier mills. He uses the negative space of the natural cavities formed by water as a start-ing point and creates 3D fragments that are cast and mouth-blown into sculptures using a technique that is thousands of years old. Turned positive, these fragments of empty spaces become objects that remind us of the fragility of our ecosystem. A view from outside: JEFFREY CONLEY (US) - one of the most renowned landscape photographers in the USA - was invited to travel the Engadine and discover it for his abstract landscape studies. As focused and contemplative as Conley photographs, his images also have a meditative radiance. He plays with perspectives, scale and light-ing moods, creating natural images of unique simplicity and stillness. In addition, Conley is a master of print techniques: silver gelatine, platinum or pigment prints on bamboo paper - all prints are handcrafted by the artist with the greatest care and profound knowledge. SIMONE KAPPELER'S (CH) analogue photographic experiments with Polaroid and infrared films show a familiar landscape in a surprising light. There is something fluid about Kappeler's photographs. It is as if we were witnessing the process of creating the image, that magical process that has disappeared with digital photography. As if we were in the darkroom watching a landscape slowly appear on paper. This cha-racter of emerging from the depths of the image surface characterizes Simone Kappeler's photography.