Wouter Stelwagen

To find that one specific building Wouter Stelwagen travels around the world with a 4x5 inch camera. His photographs of large scale projects are often situated at the border of the city, on the edge of culture and nature. The photographs have an orphaned beauty; The buildings are purely functional and are not mend to be good-looking, there might be a planted tree or bush, but there is never any human presence. It is the silence and the composition that counts, stripped from its social context.

In his photographs Wouter Stelwagen explores the landscape from an object perspective. He mainly deals with the urban environment and the way people sculpt their surroundings, not showing the people but the things people leave behind and the marks they make on the landscape. His work is made along the edges of cities, on the border between nature and culture. Without people around to give perspective, the buildings and objects in his photographs become alienated objects and forms in a landscape.