Eurart

About

Capturing his compositions using a camera from the 1950’s (namely a Mamiya 33 twin lens reflex medium format film camera), Sander Meisner employs an analogue technique in his photography. Unusual as it may be in our high-tech world of supercomputers, enormously equipped digital cameras and miraculous photo editing programs, his old-fashioned approach may seem outdated but nonetheless, it confirms the artist’s originality and unique gift at identifying and recording the perfect picture at first attempt. 

Meisner’s method stands in a surprising contrast to the subject matter of his photography: artificial lights, shadows, concrete buildings and architectural elements, industrial terrains, construction sites, deserted spaces – all symbols of the modern urban environment of the 21st century. In his carefully traced out compositions, Meisner often achieves the complete decontextualization of the captured object and environment, whereby his compositions take on a whole new set of meanings and aesthetic qualities, reduced into a forest of geometric symbols: 

“I photograph the landscape around me. I am interested in places that do not receive a great deal of attention normally, but when photographed at the right moment and in the right way can actually be very beautiful and have a lot of presence and atmosphere. I take things out of context, which gives the places I photograph a different meaning and purpose.”

In Meisner’s streamlined photographs, void of any sign of a heart-beat, the presence of human existence is only implied through the man-made elements, transporting our depth of contemplation to deeper philosophical levels. 

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• Sander Meisner's Geometric Aesthetic