Each landscape presented through the lens of Elger Esser appears almost limitless. Boundless to time and detached from the specificities of place, Esser’s landscapes ache with a romantic longing for places both familiar and foreign. In Esser’s most recent body of work, Paysages Intimes, the artist turns intimate exposures into luminous landscapes. In a departure from his well-known, large-scale landscape photographs, Esser produced this series of landscapes on small sheets of silver-coated copper plates. The luminous surface of the plates subtly shines through the image, allowing light to play an active role in these scenes. While the light moves in the present, the views themselves harken to a distant yet familiar past.
