Point of departure for the art photographer Ester Vonplon (*1980) has repeatedly been the landscape. Specific thereby is not the concrete geographic location but the fact that landscape first and foremost appears as pliable matter and that it follows elementary conditions: We experience rock, snow, ice, sand, desert, clouds as diverse physical states in a continuing process of genesis and demise. With her work Ester Vonplon walks a fine line, along which the photograph still mirrors the visible world. At the same time, however, the medium, thanks to its highly experimental handling, manifests itself and allows us to reflect on the special conditions. The photographs are thereby concrete as well as abstract.

As viewers we are encouraged to understand the landscape as image and the image as landscape, and to focus our perception on the elaborations, which are nuanced by the raw materials. Occasionally that assumes very tangible forms, whilst elsewhere the artist touches the threshold of the invisible. The images by Ester Vonplon have got a keen suggestive power: Not only are her works a visual adventure, but they can definitely also be experienced physically, and they touch our innermost hearts. Landscape and photography fuse in these images into a manifestation of human existence. Here too Ester Vonplon reaches boundaries: She does not stop at the surface but always penetrates the depths. She sounds out unfathomable spaces, where there are no points of reference and tries to seize the elusive.

With the project “Kunst in der Südostschweiz” the Sommedia has been supporting current artistic work in the region since 2006 and has been granting an art award since 2012. The related book series is published in cooperation with the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur.

Opening and Book Presentation: Tuesday, December 16, 2014, at 6 pm, Stadtgalerie Chur
Welcome and Introduction: Stephan Kunz, Director Bündner Kunstmuseum
Presentation of the art book: Andrea Masüger, CEO Somedia

Publication:
Ester Vonplon. Warum ist die Stille der Landschaft so laut? Series Art in the Südostschweiz, with a preface by Stephan Kunz, published by Somedia Book Publishers and the Bündner Kunstmuseum, Glarus/Chur: somedia-Buchverlag, 2014, 80 pages