Ole Brodersen: Trespassing
Photographs from Lyngør, Norway
August 1 - September 2
Ole Brodersen
Biography
Following 11 generations before him, Ole Brodersen (37) grew up on an island-society without cars, today holding about 60 inhabitants. Son of a sail maker, grandson of a captain, he used to row to school, where the only other pupil joined him in a class of two. Ole first started sailing at the age of six, and has spent most of his life close to the ocean, in constant company of the elements.
Ole was further exposed to the elements while circumnavigating the Atlantic Ocean. Accompanied by a few close friends, aboard a 37 feet wooden pilot cutter built in 1894, and at the mercy of elements for a year they led a life in elemental enclosure.
Trespassing & Poor Posters
Ole Brodersen‘s work explores encounters between man and nature, and is produced in Lyngør where Brodersen grew up and lives as 12th generation. He
is strongly affiliated to this place and the maritime elements here dominate his motifs. His father is a sail maker, his grandfather was a sailor and he himself used to row to school.
The series of photographs in Trespassing are explorations of the landscape and the natural forces that animate it. Brodersen strives to go beyond simply recording the factual view and tries to convey the concrete experience of being in a landscape. The practice is therefore a balancing act between control and chance, as he is after an image that should feel unrestricted, but that can only be seized in a semi-controlled way.
The method consists of arranging the shot in such a way, that an upredictable spatial development can be captured. For example, in the case of Trespassing, various artifacts; floating objects, lights, sparklers etc. are introduced and allowed to drift freely during long exposures. Animated by waves, wind and currents they trace out the dynamics of a landscape unapparent to perception. The resulting images, are an evocative materialization of the physical processes at work. The photographs are, to an extent, directly produced by the landscape. They are not images of the landscape, but rather traces of its movement.
During seven years of Brodersen‘s work with Trespassing, misadventures have occurred. Being development abnormalities, double exposures or interference by other man-made objects (often boats). These misadventures have now resurrected and become Poor Posters. The posters are limited edition digital prints from negatives handled roughly, which were scanned without removing dust or scratches.
Brodersen‘s photographs were last shown at the Scandinavia House in New York; his participation supported by the Norwegian Consulate and reviewed by the New Yorker and Harper‘s Magazine. His works has been acquired by private and public collections in Norway, Sweden, Serbia, Malawi, the United Arab Emirates and USA. Brodersen has sojourned in New York, Prague, Belgrade, Stockholm and Porto and recently received the city of Risør‘s art grant. He is a member of Norwegian Society of Fine Art Photographers, Norwegian Visual Artist‘s Association and recently received the city of Risør‘s art grant.
