Kigen meaning origin in Japanese is a longterm project about my roots in the Black Forest. I have been visiting the same spots over and over again since a few years now creating windows into another reality.

Tranquility and deceleration. Reduced, sustainable, long-term and natural. Engaging with a motive, watching a spot in nature for hours or even days that usually does not cry out for attention. Embracing the sounds, the wind and the movement happening around me with great appreciation and admiration. A cloud dancing between the trunks of trees and sometimes disguising them completely to in the next moment reveal them again. A little spectacle, as easily overlooked and as underestimated.

Great artists such as Hasegawa Tohaku and the writer Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (In Praise of Shadows) are style-defining for my work. As is the Japanese work philosophy. Wabi and Sabi are not empty phrases for me. Not the obvious beauty is the highest, but the veiled.

I create my works in analog large format and a mixed technique using pure platinum and palladium. The paper I use is handmade by the master John Gerard. Applied with a delicate Japanese goat hairbrush, the liquid precious metals sink into the paper fibers allowing me to achieve a peculiar depth and structure. All of the works are unicum.

All images ©Hannah Schemel