07.03. – 22.07.2023


LOREDANA NEMES
TREES, SEAS, AND
THE BEE’S KNEES



On the occasion of EMOP Berlin - European Month of Photography, Galerie Springer Berlin presents the first solo exhibition of photographer Loredana Nemes entitled "Trees, Seas, and the Bee's Knees". The selection of work on view includes the current series of works "Greytree and Heavensea" created from 2019 to 2023, the series "Immergrün" from 2020, the group of works "Blossom Time" from 2012 and the series "Greed", 2014-2017.

For two decades, the artist Loredana Nemes has worked mainly on the theme of portraits, which have been presented in numerous series and institutional exhibitions. Since 2019, Nemes has increasingly approached nature. On Rügen she creates the cycle "Greytree and Heavensea", in which she complements photographs of the beech forest in Jasmund National Park with views of the immensity of the sea. 14 visits in all seasons let her deeply explore this unique natural place and tell of the continuous change inherent in all life.

During the same time she photographs the series "Immergrün" in 2020, searching for lovers who have been together for several decades. Poetic texts and pictures emerge from the stories told by the 14 couples who showed up. In doing so, she explores the question of how the interweaving of souls and bodies of the lovers can be expressed through photography and chooses condensation through analogue double exposure for this purpose.

In the second portrait series, "Blossom Time" from 2012, the artist captured young people on their way to adolescence. She chooses to take group pictures, but photographs each young person individually and then assembles the images into diptychs or triptychs. "The cycle Blossoming is an ode to youth. The young people do not pose, they are simply there, in the fullness of their existence, just like spring and the blossoming trees that Loredana Nemes has also portrayed." (Katya Petrovskaya).

What unites all the series is their inherent stillness, Nemes' empathetic gaze and her non-judgemental portrayal - regardless of whether she shows us portraits of people or of trees. There is tangency in everything: that of the trees standing together like families on a stage, that of the merging old couples or that of the young people who pause mysteriously in front of the photographer and express the friendship and tenderness that unites them.