"Himmel und mich"

Himmel und mich by Karen Irmer depicts an atmospherically dense cloudscape in which perception and reality are inextricably intertwined. The warm, diffuse light – perhaps from a sunset – meets blurred, shadowy forms that cannot be clearly identified as foreground or background. This creates a disorienting liminal space in which spatial orientation is suspended. If one looks more closely at the image, one can make out the dark shadows of the clouds on the water’s surface in the background. Is this perhaps a photograph taken from an airplane?
Irmer is less interested in depicting a specific location than in the act of seeing itself: here, the sky appears not as an objective natural phenomenon, but as a subjective experience. The photograph invites us to reflect anew on the relationship between the external world and inner perception and to lose ourselves in a quiet, contemplative visual atmosphere.
(Christoph Fuchs)