Thomas Speck Art

In a world going through difficult times, people sometimes tend to focus on negative aspects. And to be fair, there are indeed many negative things happening, as the media often remind us. Moreover, it seems that a certain self-absorption is taking root in our Western societies, affecting conviviality.

I’ve found my artistic mission in expressing the opposite: I’m passionate about positive emotions and I greatly appreciate the unifying aspect that art can have. It’s in this direction that I find inspiration and artistic themes.

Inspired by the idea of conceptual photography and neopictorialism, I use landscape and city photography to explore a theme, because a photo of an urban or rural scene can have multiple meanings. At a basic level, it shows the landscape, evoking memories for the viewer or surprising them with the unknown. But through appropriate composition, a photo of such a scene also visually tells a story and conveys emotions. At the highest level, it can even possess an allegorical aspect. And it’s for this latter aspect that I choose subjects, as it encompasses the other meanings. Therefore, I seek landscapes that already, as a whole, allegorically respond to the theme.

To amplify and accentuate this, the photos are composed at specific locations and times. In the same spirit, the digital photographic development process is carried out: mastering the tones and adjusting colors to an appropriate color palette in such a way as to emphasize the allegorical aspect.

The theme is then revealed through a series of photos created in this way and arranged side by side in a sequence — with the idea that the collection of images forms a piece of visual poetry, where each photograph is like a verse and together they compose a silent poem. Furthermore, a few words are added to each photo to convey its allegorical aspect (see the portfolio below).

The viewer thus experiences a composition of photographs, each touching them in its meaning according to their own sensitivity, consciously or unconsciously.

Please send a message if you’d like to get in touch directly.

Prints are available.