Woodland reflections blur reality and illusion

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Each scene Axel Hütte invites the audience to enter a landscape where they are free to explore and discover the hidden details within. Hütte let the audience see the worlds he created.

Photographer and artist Axel Hütte’s current exhibition at Dirimart Gallery reveals different elements of nature through a selection of carefully manipulated images.

Hütte, whose work is a contemplation of the elements, reality and illusionary face of nature, said the series “Emerald Woods” appears like a hallucination.

“Although people can recognize the reality of natural elements in my photos, they can see that everything has a hallucinatory quality,” Hütte said.

“At first everything appears clear, yet when you come closer you get the feeling something is not quite right about the picture. The reason for this – and this is a secret I generally do not explain – is each image is actually the reflected reality in water, and it is moving.”

Closer examination is crucial if the viewer is to really enjoy Hütte’s photographs. “Something is drifting on the surface of the lake. Sometimes you can see the ground of the lake, as if you were a diver,” he said. All these elements are moved by the air to create hallucinations, Hütte said.

The work of Hütte has a poetic language, but this mainly comes from the audience, he explained. “The poetry is the product of the viewer’s imagination. I am only reflecting elements of the image.”

Hütte tries to create each scene with a particular aim. He said while many people may think “the things I have done were created by chance,” all the pieces displayed at the exhibition have been constructed with care.

In former times, photography was a document that often told a direct story, Hütte said. Yet the lucid structures he creates in his works reflect both a reality and a dream. “The works are so complicated even I cannot read the image or understand how I did it. I therefore cannot reconstruct the image.”
Each scene Hütte invites the audience to enter is a landscape where they are free to explore and discover the hidden details within.

“I am working on the idea that everybody can actually see what I have seen in nature, he said. “The person who looks at the image can never guess what makes it so complex,” Hütte said, because it is hard to understand what kind of space the photographer worked in and where he was positioned.
The reconstruction of space is not possible, Hütte said, and it is hard to imagine if there were a tree falling into the lake or if there were a person behind the tree while he was taking the photograph. Hütte likes to obscure reality in his images.

Topkapı Palace and ‘Emerald Woods’

The title of the exhibition “Emerald Woods” is the name of a fantasy place that Hütte would like to create.

“I have named it ‘Emerald Woods,’ a title that was inspired after I visited Topkapı Palace,” he said. After seeing all the jewels and emeralds, it made sense that the exhibition should be given this name.
As a photographer, Hütte seeks mystery and a world of the surreal. He studies topographic maps and when he sees a strange name he goes there. If he likes the place he works there. “When I saw Elf Lake I thought it might be good. This could be seen as a banal approach, but I always need a destination, even if the destination is not my aim,” he said.

In Turkey, Hütte is planning to visit Sülüklü Lake, the name of which presents a sense of mystery to him.

“Emerald Woods” will remain open until Dec. 27.