Missing Link

  • Dates
    2014 - Ongoing
  • Author
  • Topics Fine Art, Documentary
  • Locations Eichstätt, Solnhofen, Germany, Munich

MISSING LINK is a photographic project about curiosity, inquisitiveness and the determination to dig deeper and uncover layer by layer. The centerpiece of this body of work is the „primal bird“ Archaeopteryx, the initially missing evolutionary connecting link between dinosaurs and birds.

MISSING LINK is a photographic project about curiosity, inquisitiveness and the quest for answers. It is about the determination to dig deeper and uncover layer by layer. The centerpiece of this body of work is the „primal bird“ Archaeopteryx, the initially missing evolutionary connecting link between dinosaurs and birds. Simon Sola Holischka used multi-imaging techniques like stitching and focus stacking to photograph it’s fossil remnants with the accuracy and detail of several hundred photographs per image. The artistic process itself is determined by deconstruction and reconstruction. MISSING LINK is an obsessive search for the point where the separate is connected. In a fragmented world, with a fragmented mind we see fossils of an extinct creature from a petrified past that will never be again. Yet there is evolution, there are feathers, there is flight.

„There is a crack in everything -

that’s where the light comes in.“*

*)Leonard Cohen

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, monochrome
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, monochrome

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of shoulder, thighbone, knee and caudal vertebra
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of shoulder, thighbone, knee and caudal vertebra

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of claws and feathers
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of claws and feathers

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of tail feathers and caudal vertebra
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of tail feathers and caudal vertebra

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of spine and ribs
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of spine and ribs

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of skull remains with upper and lower jaw
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of skull remains with upper and lower jaw

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of ribs, abdominal ribs and spine
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of ribs, abdominal ribs and spine

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of pelvis
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, detail of pelvis

© Simon Sola Holischka - Wellnhoferia Grandis, Solnhofen Specimen, cyan version
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Wellnhoferia Grandis, Solnhofen Specimen, cyan version

© Simon Sola Holischka - Wellnhoferia Grandis, Solnhofen Specimen, color version
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Wellnhoferia Grandis, Solnhofen Specimen, color version

© Simon Sola Holischka - bent dove feather on blue background, upper side
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bent dove feather on blue background, upper side

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, color version
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, color version

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, visualization of working process
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, visualization of working process

© Simon Sola Holischka - Image from the Missing Link photography project
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, overview map of main plate and counter plate of the Eichstätt Specimen in graphical representation

© Simon Sola Holischka - Image from the Missing Link photography project
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, overview map of main plate and counter plate of the Eichstätt Specimen in photographical representation

© Simon Sola Holischka - section 4: partial map based on main map of the Eichstätt specimen
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section 4: partial map based on main map of the Eichstätt specimen

© Simon Sola Holischka - Wellnhoferia Grandis, Solnhofer Exemplar, Umrisslinie
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Wellnhoferia Grandis, Solnhofer Exemplar, Umrisslinie

© Simon Sola Holischka - the artist as a baby time traveling with his father at the lagoon landscape of the Upper Jurassic 150 mio. years ago
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the artist as a baby time traveling with his father at the lagoon landscape of the Upper Jurassic 150 mio. years ago

© Simon Sola Holischka - the artist as a baby with his mother, outline
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the artist as a baby with his mother, outline

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, Eichstätt Specimen, main plate, outline
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, Eichstätt Specimen, main plate, outline

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, Eichstätt Specimen, counter plate, outline
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, Eichstätt Specimen, counter plate, outline

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, outline of bone structure
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, outline of bone structure

© Simon Sola Holischka - Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, outline of feathers and exposed surface
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Archaeopteryx Lithographica, 11th specimen, outline of feathers and exposed surface

© Simon Sola Holischka - the artist as a baby, outline
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the artist as a baby, outline

© Simon Sola Holischka - bent dove feather on blue background, underside
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bent dove feather on blue background, underside