"Heaven on Earth" Print

Biographical NotesLit. Kuerschners Handbuch der Bildenden Kuenstler,K.G.Saur, Muenchen, Leipzig, 2005, 20071937 born in Berlin1957-1961 studies of Fine Artsat State Academies in Berlin and Karlsruhe (Germany)1970-1980 lectures and seminars at Berlin Academy of Fine Arts1974 first experiments in photo-paintingSince 1981 exhibitions in Germany and abroadPublications (magazines)Represented in museum photo collectionsCertificate of Excellence in photography (N.Y.)HORST-PETER ZEINERT: ON HIS PHOTOGRAPHSHis photographs are not modelled on or derived from the work of others: they are aesthetic experiments, having roots neither in documentary photography nor in traditional forms of the so-called "artistic-photo". Through them he tries to produce complementary aspects of reality. We are accustomed to look at and react to images in a conventional way and are also limited by the biological laws of sight: therefore we often miss alternative perspectives. Zeinert's concern is to influence and broaden the quality of perception, thus his photographs are objects for reflection and contemplation. The imagery on which he draws is derived from nature and our daily life and his motifs do not focus on a single object but rather its origin, location and connotation. He is asking the viewer to consider the metaphysical implication of the photograph, such as aspects of history or the present, the substance (abstract or concrete) of the image, its beauty or ugliness, and then what it evokes by way of personal attitudes, visions, dreams, reminiscences, insights and so forth. His photographs really call for reflection on these questions: "What is reality?" "Is the substance of reality nothing but an endless stream of illusions?"His belief is that the shape or form of an object or an image evokes its interior, hidden substance. In his photographs he invites the viewer to experience the combined exterior and interior of an object and either to find a balance between the rational (exterior) and the irrational (hidden) or to decide that one or other of these two principles, realism or surrealism, dominates. It is the inclusion of both these principles in his photo-graphs that enable the viewer to complete his visual impressions. We perceive reality through images which are in themselves projections of reality: illusion therefore expresses reality in our perception of the world.Caroline Gee, LONDON and Hastings (art dealer)