Photographs by Rafał Biernicki

Showroom Pixel Grain

14 September to December 2018

The picture art works Rafał Biernickis develop by the employment of predigital photo techniques and historical procedures:

"In my work I mainly use methods of direct light detection. I am not interested in duplication. I produce unique pieces that capture precisely this one moment in which light sensitivity and chemical processes create the individual image of the motif."

The ferrotypies of landscapes from Portugal and Scotland are covered with darkening glare and streaks, some areas of the picture almost lose themselves beyond recognition. These are peculiarities of the process, which were increasingly worked out in the process of creation. Thus the photographic products seem to have undergone an aging process lasting decades. This historicizing impression has a strongly alienating effect, at the same time an atmospheric condensation is created. Biernicki's photographs seem unreal and poetic, of unique beauty and timelessness. The landscapes thus staged appear like symbols of melancholic states of mind. The landscapes are juxtaposed with the portrait ambrotypes on glass plates: they in turn refer from the human face to landscape terrain, veined stones, and the ups and downs of hills and valleys.

The Polish art photographer Rafał Biernicki, born in 1972 in Sandomierz, is known for the use of antique large-format cameras and for his works in ambrotype and ferrotype. He began taking photographs in 1990 and has also worked as a photojournalist since 1997.

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