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Cloud Formation suspended, 2006, 114 x 90 cm
With this veil over them the landscapes seem far away, distant and untouchable. They have lost some of their materiality and clear spatial coordinates, the usual anchors for viewing and reading. In the Interventions, then again, the fog forms blind spots in the scenes swallowing bits of the visible spaces. In nature fog makes distances disappear, it comes close and brushes against. Fog threatens, because one may get lost in it, lose one's sense of detachment from and control over the surrounding space, and become one with it. In fog the space becomes intimate.
Hovering between magic and manipulation, capture and production of nature, these works by Antas make us question what we see in the green spaces around us. They challenge vision, make it aware of its limits, its own position in the middle of the scene. The fog with all its near-supernatural romantic associations and the near-blank canvas calling for projections while, simultaneously, tempting one closer - both draw attention to what happens between the viewer and the view. It is in this close encounter that the events of the scenes take place.
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In his recent works, Axel Antas examines the relationship between man and nature. His landscapes contain juxtaposed elements, which give them fresh new temporal or spatial dimensions. Using photography and video as his media, Antas studies romantic landscapes in relation to making art in the 21st century. The new and surprising elements in his works, nevertheless, distance the viewer from the tradition of landscape painting.
In front of the works from Interventions-series I find myself in the woods, surrounded by clusters of trees and open parkland between them. Lush greenery frames my view in some images, while in others the trees and the grass are dotted with dry leaves, yellows and browns. I am enclosed in the varying shades of green. There are no grand vistas, no spectacular sceneries. Instead, the spaces I enter as a viewer are places of events. Patches of fog share the clearings in the woods with me. It appears like cotton wool wrapped around a tree trunk in Cloud Formation Suspended. The fog hangs, immaterial yet opaque and impenetrable. In Echoes 1-5 it seems to be rolling slowly towards me over the grass. When the rays of sun hit the fog in Forest Mist with Light Beam the magic becomes pronounced - the clouds seem to mark points, where something is about to emerge. Or, where something has just vanished, leaving as its trace merely a puff of smoke. I am left standing there, before or after the event.
Low Lying Cloud Formation captured, 2005 90 x 114
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