Introduction
"The word ‘photography’ derives from the Greek phos, meaning light, and graphō which translates as writing, drawing or painting. If we look at the meaning of the word photography, we understand how crucial the question of light and the experience of colour is for photography, and also how it can lead to painting and to expressing oneself in colour. Photography is, in other words, painting with light. The paintings in the new series may seem a far cry from earlier, technically accomplished, large-format photographs of still, bare landscapes and environments in intense colours. These photographs are part of a tradition of Straight Photography, in which the subject is rendered without manipulation. The negative may not be cropped and advanced darkroom techniques are used to achieve an aesthetic characterised by sharpness, high contrast and rich tonality. Straight Photography refers to photography that renders a subject in sharp focus in accordance with the qualities that distinguish photography from other visual expressions, not least painting. The world should be represented as it really is. This reporting quality of uncompromising objectivity and avoidance of distortion, a striving for technical objectivity in the work, is also present in Mads Gamdrup’s new work. It is not only painting in a more general sense, but also a new and ingenious method in the continuing study of how much light colour can conceivably contain."
Except from "Photography is Painting with Light. Mads Gamdrup’s New Works” 2021 by Åsa Nacking