Galerie Fenna Wehlau - "into the forest" Bruno Augsburger and Stephan Wurmer

 "I was walking in the forest for myself,
And nothing to seek, that was my purpose"

Photographs by Bruno Augsburger and wood sculptures by Stephan Wurmer

March 6 - July 27, 2020

 Bruno Augsburger and Stephan Wurmer deal with the theme of the forest in different genres. Both artists are united by their intense experience of nature as a source of inspiration. Their works testify to the magic and power of nature, the forest and the material wood in the specific. As the title of the exhibition, a quote from the first stanza of Goethe's poem "Found" suggests, both Bruno Augsburger and Stephan Wurmer carry the approach, of not searching, of finding. 

Bruno Augsburger's forest paintings were created during long stays in British Columbia and Yukon, where he hiked, fished or watched salmon. If he is looking for something, it is the simple and archaic moments that only exist outside. For Augsburger, nature is like a laboratory, a field of experience for life. From fishing alone, he has learned "that the most expensive fishing rod, the right bait, the perfect spot, the perfect time give no guarantee whether the fish will bite. This uncertainty fascinates me" says Augsburger "this is what I want to capture with my pictures, the indomitability". Swiss photographer Bruno Augsburger (1968) studied at the Zurich School of Art and Design. For 15 years he traveled in the vastness of Scandinavia and Canada. Today he lives in Zurich and the mountain village of Ardez in the Lower Engadine. Exhibitions at home and abroad.

Stephan Wurmer's approach is that of an archaeologist. In his constructive sculptures, he is inspired by the living properties of wood as a material. Wurmer exposes layer after layer, thereby creating a field of tension between free growth and guided design, so that the breath of nature remains palpable in his sculptures. The results are mostly outwardly compact forms such as cubes, cuboids, cylinders and cones that reveal an inner life rich in tension. Some of the wooden sculptures shown in the forest exhibition occupy a special position in the artist's oeuvre. Stephan Wurmer found their source material during his hikes through the Upper Austrian mountains. Stephan Wurmer (1956) studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. His works are represented in public collections and in private and public collections, exhibitions at home and abroad.

FOUND  

Once through the forest

Alone I went;
To seek for nothing

My thoughts were bent.

I saw i' the shadow

A flower stand there
As stars it glisten'd,

As eyes 'twas fair.

I sought to pluck it,--

It gently said:
"Shall I be gather'd

Only to fade?"

With all its roots

I dug it with care,
And took it home

To my garden fair.

In silent corner

Soon it was set;
There grows it ever,

There blooms it yet.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe