Unseen Sights by Douglas Mandry at Fotostiftung Schweiz

The brightly colored or metallically shimmering Douglas Mandry's compositions illustrate how humans stylize nature into landscapes.

Overview

The exhibition in the entrance rooms of the Balgrist University Hospital brings together for the first time all three chapters of Douglas Mandry's series Unseen Sights. Four years after graduating from the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL), Mandry traveled to Turkey in 2017 as part of a Pro Helvetia scholarship and explored the volcanically shaped rock formations of Cappadocia. Inspired by the colorized travel photographs that spread iconic views of tourist destinations around 1900, Mandry began to paint over his analog black-and-white photographs. The artist also distorts the shots from the Engadin and the California Mojave Desert.

The brightly colored or metallically shimmering compositions illustrate how humans stylize nature into landscapes – whether on canvas or on Instagram. Mandry contrasts the mass-produced mobile phone photos with his carefully crafted originals in the studio.