Martin Ofori - The Way I See The World

In the organizer's words:

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGERY OF MARTIN OFORI -

DOPING FOR THE IMAGINATION

Vernissage: Saturday, April 20, 2024
5 - 9 pm

Exhibition daily April 21 - 26, 2024

15-19 h
Location: Altes Pfandhaus
Kartäuserwall 20
50678 Cologne

Free admission!

From the foreword by Frank Schätzing

Imagine landing on an alien planet. Everything seems familiar. And yet in some way different from where you come from, an astonishing parallel world. The longer you look, the more you are captivated by the unfamiliar in the familiar: fascinating little deviations, otherworldly moods, alien beauty. You begin to explore this planet and realize that you are on Earth. Only you haven't seen Earth like this before.

Above all, it looks good, often grandiose, and develops a pull that is hard to resist. Especially because Ofori does not use any elaborate photographic techniques. Instead, the technique follows the spontaneous, the unplanned, the unpredictable. Mystery and ambiguity arise from blurriness.

In principle, snapshot techniques and Lomo aesthetics are nothing new. But intuitively capturing the right moment out of millions - that is the art.

What Ofori does next is, in a way, the secret of the perfect make-up. Digital post-processing that doesn't go overboard with what is technically possible, but rather carefully, even sensually enhances the magic of the image. And Martin Ofori is a master of this as a co-creator of iconic visual worlds from blockbuster films ranging from "Harry Potter" to "James Bond 007: Skyfall" and "Avengers".

The pool from which this exhibition was created consists of 18,000 photos that Ofori took during an eight-month trip around the world.

This does not have much to do with motif-based, well-planned, classic photography, but rather with the never-tiring stream of consciousness in the works of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Stanley Kubrick in "2001: A Space Odyssey".
In the end, there are no answers. Only wonder.
From the foreword by Frank Schätzing

About the artist

Martin Ofori, born 18.11.1961 in Cologne, studied Business Informatics as well as Art and Computers at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.

He has been a freelance visual effects compositor since 1998.

In over 25 years, Ofori has added visual effects to blockbusters such as "Harry Potter", "James Bond 007: Skyfall", "Iron Man 3", "Captain America 2", "Planet of the Apes 3", "Avengers: Infinity Wars" and many more, working for renowned directors (Ridley Scott, Sam Mendes, Joe & Anthony Russo and many more) and prestigious post-production houses (WETA, DNEG, MPC, Cinesite, Rising Sun Pictures).

His career has taken him to the USA, New Zealand, Lebanon and London. In 2000 he began experimenting with the Lomo camera before switching to digital photography. He has retained the Lomo aesthetic - snapshot character and randomness, deliberate blurring, scattering and incorrect exposure - but combines it in a sublime way with the means of digital post-production and creates his very own worlds. For a few days in Cologne, the exhibition shows around 20 of his often large-format works, which he divides into various small series.

The pictures are for sale.

Martin Ofori has been living and working in Cologne again since 2019.

https://www.ofori.de