#049 Michael C. Madsen, Nearly Sunken Treasure.

MICHAEL C. MADSEN (DK)

Nearly Sunken Treasure (2021)

Hahnemühle FineArt Pearl 285gsm

95 x 73.4 cm / 37.4 x 28.8 in

A Clear Path With Eyes Closed

The act of closing our eyes: We blind ourselves to the world outside, and is finally able to see clearly. Our bodies heavily anchored in reality, while our inner eye experiences our ever-moving, ever-changing inner reality. Deep breaths. We are alive and present in both realities, but only ever experience them individually. “A Clear Path With Eyes Closed” plays with the idea of blending the two realities: Being anchored in real life, while simultaneous diving into the unreal. How can we be connected with our inner selves, if we only ever live in the real, outer world? A Clear Path With Eyes Closed does not necessarily answer the questions it asks, but uses the questions as a starting point. Since the project is still a work in progress, many aspects are still undefined and unanswered. A Clear Path With Eyes Closed springs from recent loss – of a parent, of one self – depressive mental states, and how to find meaning in an unbalanced state of life. It is trying to visualise and materialise the journey to this sought after “unreality”.

About the artist

Michael C. Madsen is a danish graphic designer and photographic artist. His photographic work mainly revolves around the differences and contrasts between the real, and the unreal: often blending and intertwining these two co-existing realities into one new unreality. Michaels methodology is “atmosphere and story first”. Using a mixture of classic photography, heavy editing and CGI as his tools, and the tension between reality and the unreal, he sets out to materialise his personal unreality. Having been born in Denmark, and being raised in the small northern-most coast town of Skagen – bordering the ocean to the east, north and west – it may be no surprise that water, and its mystical qualities, seems to play quite a role in a lot of Michaels work. Michael has an educational background in Visual Communication & Graphic Design from KADK, Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as one semester at the Master of Photography at ÉCAL, Lausanne, Switzerland.