Monochrome and stretched portrait format photographs of scenes on the peripheries of industrial sites with their unused, abandoned or derelict buildings are the trade marks that betray the creative presence of G. Roland Biermann, the London-based German photographic artist. There is usually a degree of staging in his images, whether that be the uncanny, fragmentary signs of human presence, the arrangement of materials connected with industrial processes or their waste, or decaying traces of snow lying in corners where snow should not be. There is always a strong and resonant degree of ambivalence in Biermann's work whether that be in relationship to the nature of the place or to the events or their traces that occur in that place. This ambivalence triggers questions in the viewer's mind as to what his or her relationship might be to these scenes and their relevance to their life experiences. The mood is often dark - the uncanny is dominant - and this mood prompts many questions as to the nature of contemporary western culture - what is technology really about and where is it headed, what has replaced our faith in deity since Nietzsche pronounced the death of God, what are our new icons and how durable are they?
Biermann's photographs might be perceived as metaphors that offer an ongoing and continuous discourse between the wellspring of the spiritual and the creative engine of the subconscious, that underpin our thinking. The subtle but insistent references to the metaphysical, that thread their way through his images, place them at the core of that debate about the sustainability and indeed the viability of the future of humanity. While often borrowing from the realms of the mythic, his images also suggest access to another plane of existence. In the evolution of his sequential images, the apparitions that come and go there prove to be of a metafictional nature, part speculative and part fantastic. In the final analysis, Biermann's images offer a bold adventure through which the depths of the viewer's subconscious are plumbed, revealing there the presence of unanswered questions that undeniably demand answers.
- Roy ExleySTATEMENT | MORE
