Images in Trees by Paul Rolans: In search of Colours Forms and Figures

In search of Colours Forms and Figures An introduction by Dr. Marlene Schnelle-Schneyder DGPh As a rule, photographers are always searching; searching for motifs and ideas. Paul Rolans has found his motif and his idea: trees. In recent decades we have come to appreciate that trees and forests fulfil vital live-giving functions in the rhythms and cycles of Nature. Paul Rolans knows these functions, he has forged an intimate relationship to Nature and especially to trees. In the literal sense of the word he is seeking to get close to them. The word tree tends to evoke an associative chain of images in our minds: the trunk and crown, perhaps the colour green. Yet by intensifying his exploration, Paul Rolans' photos avoid these superficial clicheés. His objective is to challenge our normal, selective perception which usually only registers general features. He sensitises the observer's perception with great subtlety. He guides and beguiles the observer into focussing on the closeness and clarity of detail, on the experience of visual touch. Paul Rolans' eyes scan every minute detail, and in the totality they seek and find the special. His camera elicits colour and form from the bark, detects faces and figures which become signs. When his searching gaze has found the form, he both extracts and abstracts from Nature's offerings. Paul Rolans transforms his discoveries into images; the colours, forms and figures emancipates themselves from their origins and become autonomous visual entities in their own right. Coloured surfaces, which appear so untypical for trees, surprise us by their intensity or by the interplay of their broken hues. Forms, structured by light, take on aggressive tips and edges, whilst others display a harmonious, organic structure. Dynamic lines and coloured gradients serve to galvanise the static image into motion. We are familiar with the human face from birth and our perception seems to have an innate preference for recognising human physiognomies and figures. Paul Rolans rekindles these instincts with suggestive lines and contours, highlights them in his photos, allowing the eye to fill in the gaps to complete the image. Faces appear over primordial landscapes, angels float above surfaces. Figures, forms and colours interact, captivating our attention and perception. Paul Rolans reveals to us a new kind of Nature! We discover our own modes of perception, geared as they are to identification and recognition in order to structure our environment. The photos presented by Paul Rolans take us beyond this function. In the process of recognition we discover the puzzling and the new. We see images which Nature only reveals on closer scrutiny and for this Paul Rolans deserves our gratitude. I started my photoproject "Images in Trees" in 1995. It is a work in progress In this video you get a first impression. Some articles from the press about my exhibitions you´ll find here In 2011 there has been an exhibition,"In Focus: The Tree" , at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles Here is a part of a text "Finding the Grace in Trees" from Francoise Reynaud, the curator of the exhibition. „Visual artists as well as writers have long extolled the presence of the tree. From the origins of photography to the present day, photographers have considered the tree, with its strong graphic form and evocative power, to be a popular subject. Through the works of artists such as Robert Adams, Eugène Atget, Anne Brigman, William Eggleston, P. H. Emerson, Gustave Le Gray, Eliot Porter, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, William Henry Fox Talbot, and Carleton Watkins, this book spans the history of photography from the mid-nineteenth to early-twenty-first century to address the image of the tree in its many connotations—as graphic form, symbolic icon, and role model for the beauty of nature. The selection of eighty-one images carefully culled from the J. Paul Getty Museum’s permanent collection of photographs and reproduced in color presents the tree in various contexts: the single tree; trees in the urban landscape; uses of trees; tree reflections and shadows; and details, abstractions, and conceptual views of trees as conceived by contemporary artists.„This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition In Focus: The Tree, to be held at the J.Paul Getty Museum from February 15 to June 3, 2011.