blueprints for a blackout

About

What happens at the edge of visibility? Where do 'something' and 'nothing' meet? Austrian artist Andreas Heller investigates the border of the image and the concept of emptiness, questioning this aesthetical and philosophical paradox, while making his investigations 'visible' in his artwork. Starting with traditional 19th century etchings of traditional south Austrian landscapes, Heller reduces these full compositions to mere outlines, decomposing all shades and shadows to a series of blueprints. These now flat images, having lost all fore, middle, background and perspective, and are now empty of substance. The series of images which Heller calls blueprints for a blackout" and has been developing since 2005, is complimented in this solo show by a new sculpture, aptly untitled. A solid white bar, angled and undulating to resemble the outline of a mountain, almost divides the gallery, providing the viewer with a hint of what could be, but with no other physical or visual information. Heller presents both an analytical and poetic understanding of how we read images, and what is left when we can only see faint traces of images based on a collective visual heritage.