Galerie Karsten Greve is delighted to present This Shimmering World, a solo exhibition featuring new work by American photographer Thomas Brummett. Works from the RIVER and HALOS series, created in 2020 and 2021 and part of Rethinking the Natural, Brummett’s “project of a lifetime,” will be on show. In his photography series, Thomas Brummett not only explores natural phenomena but also manifestations of the cosmos in many different ways. All his images are contemplative and profound in character, created through quiet attention and intensive observation of his current surroundings. They are based on a rendering of a vital microcosm reflected in the macrocosm of his pictures: “One constant in my work would be looking at things very closely or over long periods of time. “These images are my meditations and are a constant through my life’s work,” says Thomas Brummett.
The influence of traditions from the Far East combined with modern natural science is just as clearly evident in his works as is the spiritual and artistic examination of nature and one’s own existence. He uses the camera as a tool, as a research instrument and mediator between the inner and outer worlds, microcosm and macrocosm, close-up and long-distance view, human being and cosmos. The River series addresses the endless movement of a river in which the world at the edge of the bank is reflected in different ways. Consisting almost exclusively of abstract organic patterns, the images appear as if they were abstract drawings when looked at from a distance. Up close, you can see the reflections in the river, which, to Thomas Brummett, seem like “portals into a reversed other world “.
His Halos series is dedicated to the light effects of atmospheric optics, known as halo phenomena. Halos are created by refraction and reflection of light, similar to rainbows. Thomas Brummett’s Halos pictures show this interaction of light and nature. They are light images exuding an almost mystical atmosphere and poetic beauty. The artist sublimates his many years of exploring the perception and reproduction of the phenomenon of light in its various forms. For him, light not only means physical light but also spiritual light, whose “shimmering,” almost magical quality, fed from an infinite source, invites the viewer to contemplatively approach his idea of “true Seeing.”
