On the work of Jan-Oliver Wenzel

Looking at Jan Wenzel’s photographs, you get a feeling of utter tranquillity. Free of the hectic pace of everyday life, of kitsch and the ornate, free of noise and colour, they celebrate unusual perspectives.

The two major themes of nature and architecture have the common factor of being reduced to the essential, to the basic message of the objects. You catch an image of the inner beauty of the world in these photographs. A frequently fleeting moment lasting only the blink of an eye is immortalised.

The architecture themes live from clear forms and stark contrasts – the interaction of light and shadow, their endless change between light and dark are the determining forces. The represented angles of vision, with surprising perspectives, bestow the architecture with a frequently abstract character: it isn’t possible to recognise the representational perceived shapes at first glance.

It is not man that determines the architecture here – it is the architecture that determines man. Again and again, the clear lines and the straightness of the architecture guide the observer through gently curved stairwells and transoms through to the softness of the nature themes with their organic forms.

It is rare that man appears: if, then in a pensive, contemplative mood, at one with nature.

Jan Wenzel visualises the entire in detail. It is pleasing to the eye, to concentrate on the essential, and pleasing to man to become involved with himself. Looking at Jan Wenzel’s photographs, you get a feeling of utter tranquillity. Really concentrating, it seems as though not only the observer is holding his breath – but the whole world does.

Anna Wondrak, 2008.