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Stephan Zirwes
Stuttgart Germany
Posted: 10.26.09
More info: Artist site
Rating: 
(3.72 - 109 votes)
About Stephan:
Hundreds of meters above the ground with a climbing harness, hanging out of an open helicopter, Zirwes composes his graphical abstracting photographs. His work shows patterns, structures, connections, boarders, uniformities and contrasts but also current political and sociocritical themes. The orthogonal view of his photographs reduces the space into two dimensions. Superficially the pictures don’t tell a story but allow an unemotional, aesthetical view on a “real-picture-graphic”. The content of the picture, through its abstract appearance, seems like an exemplary glance – not really touchable but still exactly classifiable.
But as soon as you step closer to the picture the dots and lines begin to unscramble, they turn into humans, buildings and recognizable figure parts. More and more details like the character of the surface, people in the picture and the still existing traces of their actions can be discovered. The goal is to create an artificial over-reality, that increases the tension in terms of content as well as in terms of visuals. The viewer has to ask himself if the seen is reality or fiction.
huh? i don’t get it it’s kinda interesting though
I think this artist is so spectacular that, like all the truly great artists, he makes you think the work would be simple to do; just get up in the air and shoot downward. However, if you visit his website you’ll see that he has his own unique vision and a very particular way of forming the compositions. We’ve all seen many photos from helicopters but these are stunning, just stunning.
Wow! The image of the cross-country skiers was my favorite. I agree with another poster, the website offers much better work than displayed here. Remarkable…
Great work – microcosm of the macrocosm.
Lets go take pictures, only i’ll be tied to a helicoptor.. I want to be friends with this guy.
Beautiful! I love the images on your website!
awesome
This is very provacative work, combining interesting texture, perspective and pattern from human interraction with the landscape.
I really didn’t care for the two images displayed, but after checking his website I was really impressed. There are a ton of images that turn the ordinary into really interesting images
Check out the website, there are very amazing pictures there… my favorite ones are where I can’t figure out what they are (like the yellow picture above)… or where he shows relaxation via isolation…
Good work…
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