Jörg BRÄUER

Jörg Bräuer is a German contemporary artist.

 The reflection on space and time constitutes the perpetual foundation of artistic research by Jörg Bräuer and expresses himself in different materials: photography, painting, typography, sculpture and installations. Jörg Bräuer was born in Germany. He studied at the school of Photography and Printing in Munich and holds a Fine Arts degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), New York University. He has lived and worked in Munich, New York, London, Lisbon and Barcelona and currently splits his time between Brussels and his atelier in South West of France.

Bräuer’s passion for photography and painting came to the fore when, at the age of sixteen, he was introduced to traditional hands-on darkroom printing techniques. Today, he applies the same skills honed in those early years, merging them with contemporary photographic methods to create images that reveal the fundamental nature of his subject matter.

Focusing on landscape, architecture and still life, Bräuer’s subtle and understated approach looks to reveal the restrained beauty that inhabits the unknown and magical world around us. His works exposes finer details with great depth and contrast; and his compositions have a keen sense of the relationship between light and form. His work has often been described as poetic, and over the years, his stylistic sensibilities have shown strength in content and artistic grace.

As Bräuer says, ‘Minimalist visual representation facilitates a more highly nuanced perception of form and aesthetics’. The essence of things is what fascinates him; and he succeeds in capturing it in an image, time and again; and this, for him, is perfection.

His work was presented in several fairs and salons including NOMAD St. Moritz and Capri, Certosa di San Giacomo, (Spazio Nobile Gallery 2024, 2023, 2022), Art Week Luxembourg (Spazio Nobile Gallery 2020), Art Elysées – Paris (Spazio Nobile Gallery 2017), Hangar Art Center – Bruxelles (2016), Fotofever – Tour et Taxis – Bruxelles (Arthus Gallery 2012, 2013) and Maison Parisienne (Ancienne Nonicature 2013, 2014). Jörg Bräuer’s artworks are featured in the collections of Fondation Thalie, Château de Calon Ségur, Château de Montmoreau and number of private collections.

His work has been honoured by several prizes including: Graphis: Gold Award for 100 Best in Photography (2014), Paris Photography Prize – Px3 (2010) and Photo District News Awards, New York (2010).

Selected projects texts by the artist.

Ceps – The Rooting of Time
Aged vine stocks show the indelible marks of time on the landscape. In the face of nature’s forces, they remain still and impassive, yet their contortions reveal the effort of each stock to find its unique and singular shape. They are like calligraphic brushstrokes on the land, traversing time to finally become what they are, while offering the harvest of their noble fruit.
With their wooden and muscular organic veins being twisted and roughed, confronted by all seasons, year in, year out, they have no concept of time. They shelter the soul of a fragile organism that does not want to become what our Zeitgeist, imposes on us: being interchangeable, aseptic, uprooted.
“Ceps” have silently defined their place and their place has defined them.

Edge of Silence,  Les Falaises
Natural or man-made borders are the oldest forms of elementary structures that form the basis of our geographic and social surroundings. They mark our landscapes, separating nature from the elements while maintaining their interaction, oscillating between violence and harmony. From this continuous controversy, the openness and resistance, the defense and sometimes the intrusion of space, a contribution is created in the form of adoption of an object in its surroundings. This contribution, itself perishing and deteriorating over time, makes each border unique in its surroundings and can even transform the divided structure into a sculpture. It is at this moment that a new and deeper aesthetic and meaning is announced. In front of these Channel cliffs, the natural border between sea and land, when the tide goes out, and the sea is so far away, the wall of silence of chalk and pebbles is visible. In front of these geological strata, the impression of eternity comes into view.

Conversation en Silence, Vaux-le-Vicomte
The project of this series is to create a narrative that immortalizes more than three and a half centuries of interaction between stone and its environment, and which invites us to reflect on the meaning of these works of art throughout history.
While these outdoor statues of the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte are exposed to the exterior elements, seasons and other ravages of time, as well as subject to human impact, seeing them through the lens of the camera transforms them as witnesses of flesh rather than stone. The marks of time, the subtle alterations of the materials give me many reasons to explore the silent dialogue that they maintain between them, from then on considered as living elements, and giving free rein to the imagination:
“During my first encounter, when I quietly entered these sumptuous gardens of Le Nôtre, surrounded by the magical light of dusk, I sensed the fragments of a dialogue coming from the direction of Apollo and Rhea, or was it Nessos speaking to Dejanire...or just the wind? “ What do these statues convey to us? In this space between life and death, a milestone of continuity between the two, the mute statues over the centuries now become a subject of transition; they symbolize the boundaries of time on the path to eternity.