\Martin DammannÜberdeutschland06.05. - 28.05.2005

Martin Dammann has mostly been known for his large format watercolors on paper as well as his video works. A key source for his work often derives from TV or video footage as well as from war imagery or historical archives.

The watercolours on show are directly influenced by a photograpic archive for which he has been working in the last few years. Dammann chooses to translate the photographic image into painting when he is “captured by an unexpected, vague and yet poignant feeling that something is in the photo, though not visibly… As if the moment when these photos were taken had a special meaning and despite the inability of traces of light to translate this into a photochemical process, an echoe of that meaning somehow remains.” By repeating such photos in a different medium Dammann seeks to get a grip on that phenomenon. He notes, “In that respect these watercolours are reconstructions”.