Parcours – Graduation Exhibition
Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien
2024
The process of this work is analog. It is characterized by Elena Kristofor‘s movement through the forest space. Leaving the protective studio, Kristofor ventures into the forest. With a medium format camera, she photographes the forest while walking. One characteristic of walking is repetition. Time comes into play and influences observation and thinking. Kristofor repeatedly exposes her path through the forest onto the same frame. This creates analog multiple exposures: the path is inscribed in a single negative.
She enlarges the negatives in the darkroom. The artist works on matte baryta paper, which expresses immediacy. For this reason, the works are also not framed. After the drying process, the paper becomes uneven and takes on a sculptural form. It reveals its untamed nature and roughness.
It is like the forest.
With the finished images, Kristofor returns to the forest. Walking through the forest, she traces their path. Holding the paper in one hand and the pen in the other. She does not see or observe either. The focus lies on maintaining balance and finding the way through the forest. The hand and pen record the path without conscious intervention. Kristofor relinquishes control, holding the pen loosely. It dangles in the hand like a leaf on a branch. The movement through the forest becomes the wind that sets it in motion. On the photograph, the sum of all steps appears, like the trajectory of a dance.
The images hang with a distance from the wall, casting shadows. This emphasizes the object-like quality of the paper. At the same time, the darkness from the forest expands into the space. The images seem to approach the viewer, creating a dynamic relationship similar to the artist‘s movement through the forest.
The work is completed with black-and-white portraits of trees encountered in the forest. The tree trunks occupy almost the entire image space. They are sharply contoured, close, and isolated, allowing the viewer to focus on them. For each of these shots, Elena Kristofor paused and engaged in an immediate encounter with the tree. These are analog 35mm photographs, enlarged in the darkroom on baryta paper. The framing further emphasizes their portrait-like quality.
