Press

"Exhibition: The Photographer Simone Kappeler elicits picturesque images from cheap cameras, irritates the retina with unusual colours and sometimes relies on age-old techniques. When Simone Kappeler presses the shutter release, it goes dark for a split second - the camera shutter closes and the image is recorded in secret, so to speak. And there, in secret, it remains for a while, because the photographer, born in 1952, works exclusively in analogue.

The fact that for Kappeler the process of becoming visible is a decisive part of the work is evident in her pictures. Out of the darkness and blurriness, the outlines emerge only gradually, as if we were looking at what is happening in a darkroom. In some places, the subject seems to emerge only when you look at it - it is an almost magical game with time that Kappeler plays. Consequently, her current exhibition at the Bildhalle Zurich is called "Falling Out of Time" and shows works from various creative phases.

Again and again, unusual colours irritate the retina. Kappeler often works with so-called false-colour or infrared films, which transform certain colours into shades of red or violet. However, the Thurgau-based photographer does not only rely on exquisite techniques in her photography. In 1981, shortly after completing her photography studies at the Zurich School of Design, she took a road trip from New York to Los Angeles. On the way, Kappeler used Polaroid and cheap cameras - and deliberately exploited the imponderables of the devices. The pictures from this series have something blurred and dreamy about them.

One technique from the early days of photography is iron blue printing or cyanotype, a kind of photography without a camera. Simone Kappeler lets the shadows of grasses and flowers fall onto a light-sensitive paper. The exposed areas then turn blue, while the outlines of the plants remain white. It is an extremely filigree, delicate work - a breath of wind and everything is blurred."