Woodlands - Mat Hennek

In Woodlands Mat Hennek presents genuine portraits of trees, the results of numerous hikes through various forests in Europe and the USA. Hennek sets out to discover extraordinary places in remote and often difficult to access areas, traveling on the road beyond human civilization for days. He removes spatial landmarks, alternately erasing the ground and horizon to unhinge any sense of direction. Light and shadow, pattern and structure build up to an impressionistic hymn- infinite, without a center, without beginning or end.

Hennek presents the woods as a divine, mystical architecture which we experience as well as see. Through a graphic style that sublimates the landscape into pure abstraction, he eliminates the border between painting and photography, revealing the soul of a landscape- one that is unique, indivisible and an integral part of nature.

Through Mat Hennek's photographs, we penetrate a series of mysterious circles evoking both the womb of the earth and the infinite cycle of life. In beauty, there is a powerful spiritual path. Indeed, man is not needed in these works, as it is the viewer who becomes wholly integrated in the bosom of nature. Laureline Amanieux