Dominique Teufen

With her latest series ‘Rays of Light’ she continues her experiment with optical illusions - the mental journey in a deceptively real world is continued in color. Using a silver foil and the reflecting surroundings, Teufen creates further highly romantic, colorful landscapes. However, the supposedly depicted real world loses its familiarity on closer inspection and suddenly becomes an illusion again.

In the series ‘The Presence of Absence’, Dominique Teufen explores the sculptural quality of illuminated papers, whose curved or folded corners can cast dramatic shadows or create subtle grey shapes. In doing so, she takes on a subject that she repeatedly explores: the paper trompe-l'œil. The brilliantly staged and photographed curves and edges pay homage to nothing less than light itself.

Not only the series ‘The Presence of Absence’, but also the series ‘My Travels Through The World On My Copy Machine’ (2013 - 2018) plays with optical perception and goes as far as creating sensory illusions. The landscape-like compositions do not show any real existing topographies, but are black and white photocopies of arrangements, which the artist assembles from everyday materials such as coffee grounds, foils, silk paper and which she captures by pressing the button of the copy machine. By tilting the lid of the copy machine, she regulates lighting conditions and mood.

In her recent series Dominique Teufen takes on a subject that she began exploring in 2011: the paper trompe-l'oeil. At that time, she photographed a sheet of paper that had been folded and unfolded several times, then folded and unfolded the photograph and finally took a new photograph of the photograph. The resulting potentiated optical illusion joins the tradition of refined – especially baroque – illusions and visualises most beautifully the discrepancy between appearance and reality. Taking up folded paper again as a motif and applying her experiences with the flashlight sculptures, Dominique Teufen’s latest series ‘Gefaltete Schatten Belichtet’ (Folded Shade Exposed) explores the sculptural quality of specially illuminated glossy photo papers whose bent corners cast dramatic shadows or cause subtle shading. The brilliantly staged and photographed folds pay homage to nothing less than light itself.

The series flashlight sculptures shows installations of mirror cubes, -plates and –pyramids that are positioned and staged in a corner. There are no lights coming neither from the outside nor from the surroundings of her studio. In this darkness, the camera is placed exactly in the middle in front of the mirror installation. Pressing the trigger button, the flashlight fires and the mirrors reflect the flashlight of the camera onto the surrounding walls. These lights then resonate back onto the mirroring surfaces and connect the perspective forms and lines into an illusion. In that moment the real is pushed into the background and the flashlight sculpture visualises itself. Made by the camera, hardly grasped by the eye and only captured by the camera, photography becomes the only witness of the flashlight sculptures existence.

In reference to the series Blitzlichtskulpturen, Dominique Teufen continues her working method. But now with much smaller mirror cubes, -plates and –pyramids that are positioned and staged in a corner. There are no lights coming neither from the outside nor from the surroundings of her studio. In this darkness, the camera is placed exactly in the middle in front of the mirror installation. Pressing the trigger button, the flashlight fires and the mirrors reflect the flashlight of the camera onto the surrounding walls. These lights then resonate back onto the mirroring surfaces and connect the perspective forms and lines into an illusion. In that moment the real is pushed into the background and the flashlight sculpture visualises itself. Made by the camera, hardly grasped by the eye and only captured by the camera, photography becomes the only witness of the flashlight sculptures existence.