Self-portrait


Unable to fall asleep at night: tossing and turning from side to side, hitting the pillow, counting sheep, thinking of beautiful places, trying to control ones breathing. Everything that in daytime might seem insignificant suddenly attains an overblown importance. The unfinished letter, the job left undone, the tactless comment to a friend, all become indelible character flaws rather than little slip-ups of which anyone might be guilty. What is it that makes nighttime so different from the day?

Perhaps it is related to being deprived of visual information. With no distractions, there is nothing left to ponder but yourself. The night has a mysterious power. It draws you in and leaves you exposed. In fact, all your senses are heightened. I want my photographs to appeal to the imagination in the same way that night does. Some of my photographs, such as Dreamscape 1, pick up on this intensity through the use of color; in others it may be present in the suggestion of a dreamlike, moody quality. The photographs are seductive and unsettling, strange and not quite believable. They might have been manipulated—the colors are too intense or the light is not quite right—yet again, maybe they haven’t. I have always been interested in that kind of ambiguity, the play between fact and fiction, imagination and reality…


The full text is published in "tema celeste" No. 85, May-June 2001.




Uta Kögelsberger