FACTS
Title: Hidden in Plain Sight
30+ fine art photographs by Birthe Havmøller
Artist’s Statement
Hidden in Plain Sight is a poetic (re)enchantment of Nature. I am taking the viewer on a spiritual journey where I open up a view of nature that is neither scientific nor documentary. Here, Nature is a mirror of humanity, opening up hidden layers of meaning that are not encompassed by the prevailing concept of Nature.
Water plays a central role in the visual narrative. Water that nourishes Nature’s growths in the forest. Water that remembers and carries knowledge about its surroundings. Water as both a creative force and a driving force that undermines, dissolves and leads to changes.
The art project is created in an intersection between a fairytale vision and a physical reality. I mirror my inner landscapes out into the world and photograph them. Nature on the margins of the cultural landscape becomes an extension of the physical body, a kind of external memory. This method is an intuitively searching process, a search for a state of mind and a spiritual realization of unity with all there is in a time when the technological development of society is invariably moving us further and further away from Nature. The result is a manifestation of a gaze and a synchronicity with Nature that is more important than ever before.
The series consist of 30+ fine art photography works. It is a visual poem with works in three different formats (panorama, A3 and A4). All the works are small and intimate; they invite the viewer to get close and take time to immerse themselves in Nature’s small details and sculptural forms.
See the Hidden in Plain Sight portfolio
Birthe Havmøller’s creative practice
Classic black-and-white photography is the core of my artistic practice. I started making analogue photography and photopolymer prints I made in the 1990s. Now I do fine art Epson prints in the form of archival fine art inkjet prints on cotton paper. The enigmatic has a recurring place in my imagery in the form of the old spiritual symbols: vesica piscis, the circle, the spiral, etc.
2024. Tangring (Seaweed Ring) and Svanerne (The Swans) from Hidden in Plain Sight.