Portraits of Trees by Jacob Gils

Jacob Gils’ photography often features the natural world, with trees being a prominent subject in many of his images. Through his lens, Gils captures the unique beauty and character of these ancient beings, revealing the intricate details and textures of their bark, leaves, and branches.

In addition to their aesthetic appeal, trees play a vital role in our environment. They provide oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide, and help to regulate the climate. However, many forests around the world are threatened by deforestation, climate change, and other environmental challenges. Through his photography of trees, Gils seeks to raise awareness of these issues and encourage a deeper appreciation and respect for the natural world. His images often showcase the majesty and power of nature, inviting viewers to reflect on their own relationship with the environment and to consider ways in which we can all help to protect and preserve it. Whether capturing the vibrant colors of autumn leaves or the stark beauty of winter branches, Gils’ photography celebrates the diversity and resilience of the natural world, while also acknowledging the urgent need for action to address the environmental challenges we face today.

Jacob Gils’ works are included in several private international collections and entered into the permanent collections of four international museums (Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden, The National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen, Denmark, Preus The National Museum of Photography, Norway, Bogotá Museum of Modern Art, Colombia)

Movement is a series, which combines a strong aesthetical point of view with meticulous attention to technical detail. As the title indicates, the series is concerned with giving shape to the temporal and spatial aspects inherent in all visual experience. In the early days of photography, what fascinated people the most, was its ability to capture likeness and freeze time. However, paradoxically the new medium’s ability to fix moments in time, tied it irrevocably to the past. Rather than stop time, traditional photography makes the viewer acutely aware of its passing.

The advent of photography is closely linked to the modern movements in Western painting, which began with the French realists in the mid nineteenth century and flourished with impressionism a few decades later. The impressionists abandoned the static and staged imagery of previous eras in favour of a vibrant new style, which emphasized momentous impressions over exact likeness. A similar exploration of the material qualities of colour and surface and the same feeling of experiencing the world in fleeting moments is at play in Movement. Like the impressionists who would often return to the same motifs time after time, Gils is also drawn to sites, which convey a certain atmosphere and continuously explores these, from different angles and at different times of year. There are differences too however. While the motif in paintings by impressionist frontrunners such as Monet and Morisot, dissolves when one zooms in upon it, the distortions of the images in Movement are revealed upon closer scrutiny to be new details and clear shapes, adding an extra dimension to the images. As such, the series explore a fluctuation between figuration and abstraction, thus unsettling the unique relationship between the photograph and its real life referent, which long distinguished it from other modes of representation. While some of the images clearly portray a likeness, others render the original subject almost unrecognizable. In these works, Gils explores what happens to the image when the original referent can no longer be discerned. When the signifier no longer has a signified.

The Movement series also represents a breach with the dominant Nordic landscape tradition, which has tended to favour quietude, subdued colour and a certain melancholic mood. Contrary to this, Jacob Gils’ works are vibrant and dynamic, emphasizing the ongoing exchange between image and beholder. [Official Website]