Inspired by early photographic experimentation and Karl Blossfeldt’s systematic plant studies, Vandebrug adopts a similarly attentive, investigatory gaze in this series, but rather than presenting fixed representations, he stages seeing as an active process: By presenting fragments that invoke acts of zooming or close looking, the works offer heightened detail while simultaneously requiring the viewer to recontextualize and mentally (re)assemble the whole.
As Vandebrug puts it; “This series is about seeing for the first time, before the world has settled into clear objects. Each work is built from many photographs made through small shifts in distance and viewpoint. I move through the subject like a puzzle, from corner to corner. The image forms slowly, not as a single capture, but as an accumulation of partial views.”