Marie Wengler fine art photography

MARIE WENGLER fine art photography

Solo exhibition in Illums Bolighus 2012 3th of May - 5th of August

Marie Wengler (born 1992) Since a very young age I have worked with and have been interested in both arts and photography. Over the years, it has become increasingly obvious to merge these two disciplines together, and during the past years I have therefore increasingly explored and developed diverse artistic photographic expressions. Interesting about photography as an artistic expression is, that you can capture a unique moment through a camera, which may contain many varying moods and emotions. The frozen and unique expression and mood in each image can be increased and subsequently highlighted by using digital manipulation techniques, whereby the original photograph gains a new expression and meaning. Over the past few years my experimental approach to photography has resulted in several different photographic series of widely varying themes and artistic focus (visit www.mariewengler.com to see more images). The contrasting photographic series that I have worked with indicate the development that my artistic expression has gone through so far - although it certainly and hopefully will continue to evolve in the future. Through increased knowledge and inspiration from the works of other and more established artists, I seek to further develop my personal experience of art and my artistic expression. I seek to transcend both my own and the viewer’s boundaries when I create art. From previously being less aware of a recurring theme and message in my pictures, I now spend months preparing each image and the overall theme of a series of images before a photo-shoot. I therefore still have lots of ideas to bring alive in the future and I really look forward to this process.

Dehumanization Size: 70 x 100 cm Edition 1/6 The photograpic print face is mounted to glossy acrylic and aluminium, which provides a rigid and flat surface.

Faceless/Anonymous Existence Size: 70 x 100 cm Edition 1/6 The photograpic print face is mounted to glossy acrylic and aluminium, which provides a rigid and flat surface.

After a couple of years with limited artistic possibilities due to an increased focus on improving my educational skills, I’ve finally resumed my passion for art and photography after finishing high school in the summer of 2011. I have since worked intensively to increase my skill and I will in future continue to expand, challenge and develop my understanding of both art and photography. However, I still have much to learn, many new forms of artistic and photographic expressions to explore, many photographic and artistic image series to create.

Disintegration Into Meaninglessness/ Anonymity Size: 50 x 130 cm Edition 1/6 The photograpic print face is mounted to glossy acrylic and aluminium, which provides a rigid and flat surface.

Most of the images which are displayed in the exhibition ‘Generation Y?’ in Illums Bolighus are part of a series of portraits. Through the use of different remedies the pictures are intended to emphasize feelings of both fascination and disgust, of absurdity and identification. The images challenge the youthful innocence, they seek to reveal the inner primitive human instincts - the personal dark side, usually suppressed but still existing in each individual.

The portraits depict the late/post modern, anonymous and individualized human existential issues in a society of threat, where technological change is increasingly affecting and changing human relationships and interaction patterns. The fear/anxiety of alienation from our own identity and body in a rapidly changing, complex, globalized world is highlighted. A desire to not be insignificant and ignored as individuals and to feel alive. The quest to avoid loneliness, isolation and the feeling of life’s meaninglessness. The frustration at not being able to live up to society’s demands and standards for perfection and success if you make the wrong decisions in life. Subsequently, individuals in some pictures screaming out this desperation.

From community-based requirements to human life, it is now individualized requirements that have an impact on our own lives. We create our own lives without strong regulation from family and community, offering a new freedom for the individual but also leading to new requirements and a personal responsibility no one but you yourself can undertake. You are ultimately responsible for your own success and failure.

Homo Duplex/Binary Being Size: 50 x 70 cm Edition 1/8 The photograpic print face is mounted to glossy acrylic and aluminium, which provides a rigid and flat surface.

Save Me From My Thoughts Size: 87 x 120 cm Edition 1/6 The photograpic print face is mounted to glossy acrylic and aluminium, which provides a rigid and flat surface.

I Am That I Am Size: 50 x 100 cm Edition 1/6 The photograpic print face is mounted to glossy acrylic and aluminium, which provides a rigid and flat surface.

The images seek to highlight society’s polarized boundaries - between normality and abnormality, between identity and dissimilarity, between tradition and de-traditionalization (this aspect is emphasized by the difference between the photographic medium as an artistic expression compared to traditional forms of art), between genuine and fake (by using digital manipulation techniques the distinction between real and unreal is reduced), between life and death.

As regards this last existential problem - life vs. death - some of the images in the exhibition may therefore also be viewed as a rebirth or re-interpretation of the Vanitas genre where human frailty, vanity and fear of the inevitable mortality are thematized. These images focus on the duality in the perception of human mortality as either redemptive or horrific for mankind in the space between birth and death.

Memento mori is still an eternally valid concept describing the basic conditions for human existence, but in spite of our knowledge of the inevitable dead it is a constantly recurring and relevant theme in art, as people never seem to be able to come to terms with the end of life - accentuated by a late/post modern secularized society where the scientific development and matterof-fact determination of the human bodily degeneration have generated doubt about the old religious beliefs/traditions that in the past could relieve the fear of death, still without providing new meaningful scientific evidence about human existence after death for the individual to relate to today. A retention and extension of youth has become more important than ever. Â

Face It Size: 80 x 120 cm Edition 1/6 The photograpic print face is mounted to glossy acrylic and aluminium, which provides a rigid and flat surface.

I’m All, I’m None Size: 50 x 90 Edition 1/6 The photograpic print face is mounted to glossy acrylic and aluminium, which provides a rigid and flat surface.

Cybernetic Size: 70 x 100 Edition 1/6 The photograpic print face is mounted to glossy acrylic and aluminium, which provides a rigid and flat surface.

Visit my website to see a larger selection of images with the same theme: www.mariewengler.com

Contact me personally: mariewengler@gmail.com

Find me on: Google+ Facebook Twitter

All pictures mounted by Pernille Montage Lab+

Visit or contact Illums Bolighus in Copenhagen, Denmark, from the 3th of May - 5th of August 2012 to see the images from this magasine in real or recieve more information about purchacing images.