Michael Wesely

Another Pencil of Nature – Part 2

Michael Wesely

Working with extended exposures, Michael Wesely has primarily emphasised social and urban processes in his work. However, in his new series, Another Pencil of Nature – Part 2, he makes reference to the beginnings of photography in the 19th century. Using segments of his own archived photographs, he produces new perspectives through the dissolution of boundaries in the motifs shown, heightening our awareness of the effects of light and thereby subverting historically founded expectations concerning the photograph as a medium of representation. The large-format details are masterful images that go far beyond any idea of depiction, revealing the timeless and almost painterly dimension of photographic images. Focusing on details of nature, the familiar motifs assume the character of surreal manifestations. The view into the top of a tree is transformed into an avalanche and becomes a breathtaking natural spectacle; in a photograph the sky above the trees of the Jewish cemetery seems to be infused with the cosmic rays of the sun.