Pencil drawings on paper, not larger than 6 x 9 cm – in his first publication the artist Marcel Gähler from Winterthur presents spectacularly detailed drawings that are based on his own photographs. Crime sites, no-where places, dawn, twilight – Gähler’s drawings confuse, enthrall and have a lasting impact. The small-format drawings created by Marcel Gähler over the last four years are now compiled in a book.
The photo-realistic components that also define the artist’s painting are reinforced by the form of these miniaturized pencil drawings – although the extraordinary fineness of the drawings surpasses what could be achieved by the original black and white photos. But the contextual aspect, the strongly laden ambiguity of the depicted site, is also reinforced by an obsessive employment of the drawing medium. Carrying the camera with him at all times, Marcel Gähler photographs unspectacular places at dusk, in twilight or at night, in seemingly deserted areas, possible freeze-frames or crime sites. Pictures emerge that encompass an ambivalent mix of crime site and no-where places, pictures that exist at the crossroads between trivial snapshots and deeply significant references, thus creating a thematic state of uncertainty that remains open to interpretation. The drawings were all created through hours of meticulous preparation on the basis of the artist’s original photos.
“The result is marvelous materializations of a sovereign purity and density.” (Hans Renggli)