Joachim Schmeisser
SIDE EFFECTS – The Essence of Photography
New Works

Online Exhibition: here

It is not often that one discovers artistic works whose visual originality and spiritual substance catch the eye as abruptly as the works in Joachim Schmeisser's new "Side Effects" series. They are color-intensive images that show the Munich-based artist from a new side.

This series is dedicated to “magic traces” that have fascinated the artist for many years. They can occur during the initial exposure of analogue film material, capturing the transition to the light-sensitive film emulsion.

Usually overexposed or underexposed, they reveal pastel or blood-red colored areas that emerge from the still black, uncoated film surface. With certain types of film and development processes, the traces take the form of remarkable shapes that sometimes resemble cosmic or microcosmic structures.

His basic material comprises exposed first clips of films, produced between 1975 and 2006, which the artist collected over many years.

The artistic process begins with scanning the individual film clips that have been significantly enlarged in size. By means of a complicated digital process, which does not alter the original quality of the individual clips, the artist develops a hybrid analogue–digital artwork, which takes us back to the essence of the photographic image. With this group of works he has succeeded in creating something truly new, surprising and solitary.