Silent Signs
“I wish to capture what is behind I see”.
Takeshi Shikama, Shape of Water, 2020“I perceive landscape as a physical space where one can linger, but also as a mental space, as poetic consciousness. My paintings, photographs and video works are all about atmosphere in nature, what transcends it and the longing to be absorbed by it.”
Petra Dekker, 2024
Petra Dekker's work explores the deeper layers of experience that enable us to become one with nature, attempting to rid the moment of its memory. This paradoxical undertaking requires a slower way of seeing and creating. Her working method consists of a three-step process: experiencing the moment, recording it photographically and abstracting it painterly. She offers an inspiring glimpse into the soul of the world. There is no final product. The work is never finished. Repetition and return are part of this "condition humaine": amidst the landscape, she observes changes over time.
The way she engages with the subject and returns to it again and again reveals a particular fascination, as described by Robert Macfarlane in 2012 in "The Old Ways" and in his more recent publication "Is A River Alife?": in his view, landscapes are not only spirited but also spiriting; inner and outer worlds, separated in language, merge in reality. His way of thinking paved the way for nature to become a legal entity, affording it greater protection.
This ‘reversal’ offers artists a source of inspiration, to make visible what we don't know, beyond language: "I look for a place and a state of being in which the boundary between myself and the environment fades. I experience the connection that arises with nature as something magical. The atmosphere, smell and sound lead to intimacy and stillness...."
To achieve this, Dekker travels to the mountains (Eiger, Switzerland / Vallée du Dadès / Morocco) or coastal areas (Normandy): where the transitions in nature are clearly visible. The phenomena that fascinate her - melting glaciers, collapsing chalk cliffs, ocean tides - contain a visual richness from which she derives new images.
At first glance, the images are reminiscent of the romantic longing for the sublime. But where the Romantics focused on the grandeur of nature and the insignificance of humanity, Dekker longs to abolish that distance by revealing its beauty in and around us, far away and close by, inside and outside us, as silent signs.
In a world dominated by (re)presentation, revelation, limitation, and visibility, Dekker gives a platform to the unknowable underlying and thus to what is rapidly being erased. The combination of a longing for unification and silent activism makes her work as timeless as it is urgent.
