Eugene Gorny

The Elements of Sadness
(Statement for a 2005 personal exhibition at Goldsmiths, University of London)

For me photography is not a conceptual activity, but a pure unconditional pleasure. I don’t think when I take my photos but rely on intuition. I’m just looking around, waiting for a moment when something inside me responds to the outer configuration of colours and shapes. The art of pressing the button consists of capturing such moments.

Thinking comes afterwards. Looking at my pictures, I try to make sense of them. What do I see? I see that my sight fixes upon distortions, reflections, shadows, odd configurations or abstract forms. It doesn’t really matter if these are people or things. It’s not particular objects but a state of mind that is important.

I’d call this state of mind contemplation. Here, the opposition between the world and the mind tends to disappear; they become united by correlation and resonance.

A thing that induces certain states of consciousness, as we know from Pyatigorsky and Mamardashvili, is called a symbol. But it may also be otherwise: consciousness, when it is alive, reveals symbols in reality (or creates them in the act of perception) as something in which it recognizes itself.

If understanding th...