Steidl Mat Hennek: Sounds of Spheres

In the atmospheric photographs of Sounds of Spheres, Mat Hennek creates striking impressions of how we imaginatively engage with nature. Whether depicting the world from a traditional receding perspective―a misty landscape at sunrise, snow-laden branches, palm trees bending in the wind―or from above―the serpentine curves of a river, fossil-like patterns in sand, the churning surface of the ocean―Hennek does not record nature but captures the apparitions it evokes. Through the soft blurring of edges, lyrical color and a focus on pattern, his images move between representation and abstraction, simultaneously capturing and veiling form. The idea of the sphere links subjects that may at first seem unrelated: a rock posed like a face at the top of a mountain, the glowing ball of the setting sun, the round shapes of ice crystals in a miniature frozen universe, and the great globe of the Earth upon which all this unfolds. And yet Hennek’s fascination with spheres is never merely formal: through the “sounds of spheres” he taps into the harmonizing musical resonances of all living things―secret but accessible, if we only listen closely enough. All living beings produce sounds, just like the planets in the universe: a symphony that we hear only if we become attentive. - Mat Hennek