In Focus: The Tree at the J.Paul Getty Museum / „Images in Trees“ by Paul Rolans

Anlässlich der Ausstellung In Focus: The Tree im J.Paul Getty Museum, möchte ich hier auf meine Fotoserie „Images in Trees“ aufmerksam machen.
Schauen Sie auf  “Images in Trees” – Archive
Ich arbeite seit 1995 an dieser Serie. Ich fühle mich wie auf einer Entdeckungsreise, die noch lange nicht zu Ende ist und auf der ich immer feinere Details in Bäumen wahrnehme. Meine erste Ausstellung mit diesen Bildern hatte ich in 1996 in der Humboldt Universität in Berlin.

Alexander von Humboldt, der Bruder von Wilhelm, war auch ein Forscher und Entdecker und brachte viele Schätze von seiner fünfjährigen Entdeckungsreise durch Süd-Amerika mit zurück nach Deutschland.
Einige Beispiele aus meiner Fotoserie „Images in Trees“ finden Sie hier und hier
In 1996 I showed my pictures at the Photokina in Cologne here is an article in the Magazine Photopresse about it.
In 1997 I have had an exhibition at the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Bonn. Mrs.Angela Merkel held the opening speech at the vernissage. In the same year I have been commisioned by the Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forestry to participate in compiling a photowall on the theme „Forest/Wood“ for the EXPO 2000 in Hannover.
En 2001 j`ai exposé mes photos dans La Maison de la Nature et de la Foret (sous le Patronage de la Direction Générale des Ressources Naturelles et de l´Environnement du Ministère de la Région Wallone).Vous trouvez ici un text en francais.
For an Article by Mrs. Marlene Schnelle-Schneider (German Society of Photography) about „Images in Trees“ please Look here
Auf der Homepage von The J.Paul Getty Museum fand ich einen Text über die Ausstellung In Focus: The Tree und den Artikel „Finding the Grace in Trees“ von Francoise Reynaud ,Kuratorin für Fotografie im Musée de Carnavalet in Paris und Autor von dem Buch The Tree in Photographs.
Here are some outtakes from the two articles. For more please Look at http://www.getty.edu ( current exhibitions)

In Focus: The Tree
February 8–July 3, 2011 at the Getty Center
“For millennia the tree has been a symbol of life. Celebrated by most ancient civilizations, the tree has stood for the center of the cosmos and the origin of creation. Represented throughout art and literature, trees feature in the earliest photographs from the 1840s as well as in contemporary works today. This exhibition, drawn entirely from the J. Paul Getty Museum’s permanent collection, presents a range of photographs that reveal various artistic responses to the perennial subject. Documenting primeval forests and cultivated nature, these images explore the tree in its many connotations—as a graphic form, an evocative emblem, and vital evidence of the natural world in which we live.”

„Finding the Grace in Trees”
by Françoise Reynaud”
„When I began to research tree photographs in the boxes of the collection for the new exhibition In Focus: The Tree, each image I selected spoke to me in a special way. At the time, I wasn’t thinking at all of an exhibition, I was simply conducting research to see how trees and photographers dialogued through the centuries—a very universal but also extremely personal dialogue between nature and humans.
Then, when it was decided that we would cremte a book and an exhibition from this work, my co-curator Anne Lyden, associate curator in the Department of Photographs at the Getty Museum, and I chose to emphasize how each photograph was able to convey a message. The images had to be expressions of beauty, strength, fragility, grace, grandeur, strangeness, utility, and so on. The relationship between the individual tree and the scene or the event depicted is what’s interesting to see and to understand. Each photo tells a unique story. Trees are sometimes so old; they have seen so much. Trees don’t wait for the photographer to be beautiful or expressive, they just are.Ranging from 19th-century works to contemporary pieces, the prints in the show are by both recognized and lesser-known artists. Among the photographers whose work is on view are Robert Adams, Eugène Atget, Simryn Gill, Gustave Le Gray, Myoung Ho Lee, Eliot Porter, Alfred Stieglitz, and William Henry Fox Talbot.

The most interesting thing in the exhibition to me is how all of the images do relate to each other—they have a dialogue. Photographers like trees because, very often, they make portraits of themselves while taking these pictures. But not always, of course! Sometimes it’s just a way of finding inspiration and beauty in nature. Some photographers are well known for making pictures of trees, like Carleton Watkins, Atget, or Adams. But sometimes the picture is an exception to their body of work, as with Man Ray, André Kertész, Dorothea Lange, or Diane Arbus. It seems to me these exceptions mean something very personal: perhaps the tree embodies a feeling very present in the mind of the photographer, and somehow resonates with what they as a human are going through in their life. I like to think so.

„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.

Françoise Reynaud is curator of photographs at the Musée Carnavalet, Paris
The Tree in Photographs
Author: Françoise Reynaud
Year: 2010

“Remembering Forward” Australian Aboriginal Painting since 1960 / “Images in Trees” by Paul Rolans

Contemporary Aboriginal art has two central characteristics: the artists’ binding relationships to their traditions and myths on one hand, and a visual language that appears highly modern to Western viewers on the other. At first glance, the works recall abstract Western painting. At the same time, however, they are concrete realizations of the land, and they show the connection of land and Dreaming on a direct and sensual level. Read and see more

Mit »Remembering Forward« zeigt das Museum Ludwig in Köln exemplarisch neun herausragende Positionen zeitgenössischer indigener Malerei der letzten 40 Jahre, die aus den Wüstenregionen im Zentrum und aus den Kimberley im Nordwesten Australiens stammen. Die Gemälde auf Baumrinde aus Arnhem Land , die um 1960 auf Initiative von Tony Tuckson und Stuart Scougall in die Art Gallery of New South Wales nach Sydney gelangten , fand ich klasse. Es war das erste mal , dass ich sie in einer Ausstellung sah. Sie haben eine lange Tradition. Schon vor Ankunft der ersten weißen Siedler verbreiteten sie sich über ganz Australien . Ich sah gleich die Parallele zu meiner Fotoserie „Images in Trees“ an der ich seit 15 Jahren arbeite. Die Bilder die ich in Bäumen sehe befinden sich auf der Außenseite der Baumrinde. Sie kommen zustande durch das Licht der Sonne, das sie akzentuiert oder einen Schatten wirft der zu einem Schattenbild wird, durch Regen, oder Schnee und, was sehr wichtig ,ist durch die Perspektive aus der ich sie betrachte und fotografiere. Ich sehe sie nur wenn ich mich vorher auf einen möglichen Fund einstimme, indem ich durch das Spazieren im Wald, Park oder Garten meinen Kopf frei mache von den Themen des Alltags. Meine Dreamtime. Die „Images in Trees“ haben auch eine lange Tradition. Seitdem es Bäume gibt, gab es die Möglichkeit Bilder darin zu entdecken. Der Betrachter, Entdecker, ist ein Kind seiner Zeit und jede Zeit hat seine eigene Bilder. Es gibt aber auch Archetypische Bilder die Zeitübergreifend verstanden werden können.Schauen Sie bitte hier und hier

"Images in Trees" - Archive

Here are some articles about my photoproject "Images in Trees" / "Bilder in Bäumen".

I have started it in 1995 as a work in progress.

"Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings" ~ “Images in Water” by Paul Rolans

Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings.

This exhibition is organized by Moderna Museert, Stockholm ,8 October 2011 –15 January 2012 ,in collaboration with Staatsgalerie Stuttgart ,11 February, 2012 – 28 May, 2012 and Tate Liverpool, 22 June - 28 October 2012.

“All three of these artists tested the boundaries of painting and radically challenged the traditional manner of artistic depiction. Well-considered juxtapositions will provide visitors with opportunities to contemplate each artist’s personal style as well as insights into the late phases of their careers. In his storm-blown seascapes, the English painter William Turner (1775–1851) developed an abstract pictorial language which was then taken up by the Impressionists. Claude Monet (1840–1926) realized the motifs in series of water lily paintings with differing light atmospheres. The works of Cy Twombly (1928–2011) offer a perspective on Turner and Monet from the vantage point of contemporary art. A prominent exponent of Abstract Expressionism, the American developed the poetic pictorial language further in his mythological compositions.

I admire the work of William Turner and Claude Monet a lot. It is an inspiration and at the same time a challenge to come up with something unique.. In my photo project "Images in Water", I show my view on this fascinating element. After many years of water-observation, I developed a special way of looking at it. I call it my imagenistic perspective. It. enables me to see Images in the water. Forms, figures and colours that are almost unbelievable.
The choice of works in the exhibition is very deliberate, it has seven themes. Beauty,Power and Space, Atmosphere and Fire and Water were the themes that I had in mind as I choose the pictures for this slide show.

I sell the photos in this video, but I also arrange exhibitions at congresses, conventions, meetings, celebrations,business- and other events,worldwide. On request, I create an unique photo-edition of "Images in Water" for you. Please contact me.

"The Gerhard Richter Window" in the Cologne Cathedral - an imagenistic interpretation by Paul Rolans

                                                                                                                                                                

The new stained glass window,in the Cologne Cathedral, designed by Gerhard Richter has been unveiled to the public on Aug. 25 - 2007. I went to look at it quite a lot since that day. The best time to do that is when the sun shines through it. Then some of the Cahedral´s walls look as if they are painted in light and fabulous colours. It inspired me so much, that I had to make this artistic comment,this imagenistic interpretation, in which I transform the stained glass window with its 11.500 coloured squares into images, that resemble the abstract paintings of Gerhard Richter

"Colour in the light"

"Richter’s work is indifferent to interpretations. It doesn’t operate with a higher meaning that can be read out of it, nor does it require this. It is what it is: colour and light. And it manages quite well with these fundamental elements. They suffice to produce a celebratory harmony. The coloured glass squares are only mediators between the sunlight of changing times of the day and the light yielded by the radiant power of the sun that passes through the coloured material. The sunlight manifests itself as coloured inside the church. And as the living natural light changes, so too does the colour tone of the affected light. Sometimes, on bright days, the yellow tones dominate; sometimes, on overcast days, the dark blue tones. The window lives from living light as the source of all life. ‘The light of the sun’, says the Dean of the Cathedral Dr. Feldhoff, ‘is refracted by the panes into the colours of the world’.... read the whole article

 

Gerhard Richter Panorama

"Gerhard Richter, beyond a doubt the most famous German artist of his generation, will be celebrating his eightieth birthday on 9 February 2012. To mark the occasion, the New National Gallery in Berlin is holding a sweeping retrospective of his work, in conjunction with Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris...." read more.

"Neptune in Water" as seen by Paul Rolans -The Imagenist

It was breathtaking as I saw Neptune, the mythological God of Water and the Sea in a litte river, that has its sources in the woods of Aachen. The name Aachen derives fron Ahha, which means "Water" in the Ancient Germanic language. Seeing Neptune in all his splendour, had a AHA! effect on me.
The first Image is one of the originals. As you´ll see it is just perfect.I didn´t need to change or edit a thing. I´ve made some variations of it in order to create this video.

"Under Trees. The Germans and the Forest" / "Images in Trees" by Paul Rolans

On the occasion of the exhibition "Under Trees.The Germans and the Forest", in the German Historical Museum in Berlin, I present this video with pictures of my photoproject "Images in Trees", which  I started in 1995.

In the year 1997 I exhibited my works at the Federal Ministry of Environment, Bonn. The exhibition with the title "Vielfalt - Bilder in Bäumen" was opened by Dr.Angela Merkel.

For more information please look here and here.

I sell photographs of my project in my webshop. If you appreciate my perception of trees or if you are looking for an exceptional present, I create an exclusive photo-edition for you of the Images in the Trees in your (palace)-garden, in your park or in your private-forest. Please contact me.