Mat Hennek: Woodlands

In Woodlands, German photographer Mat Hennek (born 1969) presents portraits of trees, the results of numerous hikes through various forests in Europe and the US. Hennek sets out to discover extraordinary places in remote and often difficult-to-access areas, traveling for days on paths remote from human civilization. Hennek removes all spatial landmarks, alternately erasing the ground and horizon to unhinge any sense of direction. Light and shadow, pattern and structure build up to an impressionistic hymn--infinite, without a center, without beginning or end.
As author Laureline Amanieux writes, “man is not needed in these works, as it is the viewer who becomes wholly integrated in the bosom of nature.” Through a graphic style that sublimates the landscape into pure abstraction, Hennek eliminates the border between painting and photography.