The works of Mariele Neudecker play with perception and illusion. Mountainous landscapes hang upside down in glass balls and are reflected in murky water; these landscape aquariums offer the beholder the classical pictorial structure of foreground, middle ground and background in a graphic three-dimensional form. Her spatial and sound installations draw as much on a Victorian England inspired by Henry James as they do on German Romanticism Caspar David Friedrich, probably its most famous representative. With meticulous detail, she constructs deserted, decaying architectural sculptures, then captures these abandoned settings as video scenes of landscapes devoid of a human presence. Loneliness and melancholy are staged in technically perfect illusory spaces, offering the beholder constantly changing perspectives on the seemingly familiar and, through this process, consciously challenging the way this is perceived.

Photography: Roland Horn
Courtesy Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin
© Mariele Neudecker