Marianne Engel
Like a hunter, Marianne Engel (born 1972) seeks out nature, usually at night and by herself. In her images, Marianne Engel captures a mood and an atmosphere that is normally hidden from us, an otherworldly view of things. Trained as a biochemist, Marianne Engel works since 2001 as a full time photographer. After exhibitions at off spaces such as Les Complices and K3 Project Space in Zurich or at the Kunstraum in Baden, she participated at this year’s Biennale in Prague. Gallery Staubkohler is extremely pleased to be the first gallery to present a solo exhibition of this young artist’s work in Zurich.
 
During her night walks, Marianne Engel only uses scarce light sources such as an occasional flashlight and otherwise the light that she finds, such as the remaining daylight or the light of the moon and the stars. This unassuming approach to photography gives Marianne Engel’s work a casual beauty and spiritual dimension. Caused by the long exposure time, Engel’s mysterious interpretations of nature are crisp and colorful images in which a group of trees may be transformed into an enchanted forest and plants turned into ghostlike beings.
 
"I instinctively discover these images on my night walks. They reflect my personal reality. It is as if I find something that has been lost and hidden in my unconsciousness. What may look real and factual during the day discloses its secret at night. I want to give the numinous a gestalt and discover the everyday sublime. I would like to see the world through the eyes of a child where everything becomes important and magic.” (Marianne Engel)
 
The atmosphere of Marianne Engel’s images sometimes remind of the strangeness found in films by David Lynch or Spike Jonze. "I'm seeing something that was always hidden. I'm in the middle of a mystery and it's all secret” (Kyle MacLachlan in David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet) would equally apply to Marianne Engel’s work.
 
author's gallery in photo.box
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