Photomanipulation nominee

Here is the selection of 5 pictures out of total 32, dedicated to great master of romanticism, J.M.W. Turner. Turner was an exceptional person and artist who lived in an exceptional era filled with social change and technological discoveries. He experienced key social and political changes – the whole Napoleonic era, he lived through the wars with France and Spain, during his time, the Declaration of Independence was pronounced in America, steam powered railway passenger transportation started and the first steam ship crossed the Atlantic. And Turner was able to respond to all these in his work – through choice of subjects, colours, symbolism.

In the project on Turner, my greatest challenge was to find themes for my own photographic artwork and to examine what would my “Turnerian invention” be and what would the difference in photo processing in comparison with the preceding projects be. I chose the theme line reflecting industrial development because Turner often addressed the subject of Industrial Revolution and I found it interesting to push this theme almost ad absurdum. In principle, I aimed to look at the English/Venetian landscape and infuse it with industrial connotations from our present time, though.

“I like stories, I am fascinated by the talents and skills of writers but also of music composers, painters, and architects. I am fascinated by the ability of actors and musicians to interpret given works. But do not look for snapshots or documentaries of a scene in my pictures, rather for an echo of stories embedded in interwoven layers that are both real and abstract in the manner of a writer embedding individual scenes in the pages of their book.”

Since 2017 Vladimir Kysela is a member of the Czech Association of Professional Photographers, APF, since 2019 he is QEP – certified European photographer as well. His projects based on literary and painting stimuli (Karel Hynek Macha, Hans Christian Andersen and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, César Manrique, William Turner) were awarded at major international competitions. He regularly exhibits his works in galleries in the Czech Republic and abroad.