Along the arctic coastline of Norway, the primeval, uninhabited panoramas of sea, glacier, and mountain continue Witho Worms’ fascination with the interplay between nature, vision and the camera. These images engage the infinitude of landscape with the limits of a frame, shaped by the artist and the technical apparatus itself.
Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what the frame contains, both a real place and its simulacrum.
– W.J.T. Mitchell, “Theses on Landscape”, Imperial Landscape
As with his earlier series, Worms brings a pragmatic, scientific rigor in defining his projects. Rendered in three layers of carbon tissue made with Sumi ink and matt Bone Black pigment, his skills as a print-maker are foregrounded in these luminous, detailed large-format views. The blackened “cropped out” areas of these 12x20 inch contact prints reveal a ghostly negative of the foreground, sky, and continuous range of the horizon. Whereas the block masked during printing reveals itself as the image selected from the wider vista.
