The work of Brazilian Czékus is inspired by the passion for plants. As she walks through the streets and parks, her gaze is incessantly searching for leaves, flowers, seeds and trees of different shapes, colors and textures.

an article written by Carmen Line Hust
ARTICULATE #30 | January 2022

From her mother, the Brazilian artist Ulla von Czékus (b. 1966) inherited the pleasure and fascination for the cultivation of plants. Influenced by her father – an amateur photographer who loved to produce images of family moments -, since childhood, Czékus grew close to the visuality of photography. As an adult, she combined these two actions to reflect on the transformation of life itself. Czékus explores, in her works, not only studio images of the universe of botany, but also a conversation between the indelible characteristic of time and the impermanence of human life - identical to the leaves, fruits, and seeds she’s photographing. Today, her work focuses on thinking about life as a continuous experience in the phase of its resplendence and, at the same time, of its marked ephemerality.

For many years Czékus has dedicated herself to photographing form, movement and my enchantment with the botanical details that she collects wherever she goes. Leaves, flowers, seeds and branches were, until recently, the exclusive raw material of her work, given the interest in studying nature in its constant transformation. Czékus noticed it rhythmically and saw, in everything she collected and had to photograph, a magical existence. These questions came to her as a result of photography made in the studio: by isolating objects from their world, she managed to pause them in the image. Every curve, vein, bend, pistil, entrails proved even more vigorous in its own evanescence. Czékus saw life in its congeniality.

The preferred media of Czékus is digital photography as she likes to see the result of the work right away. In her botanical studio images, she’s always enjoyed doing tethered capture since she can see the captured image and make corrections on lighting and positioning immediately. Recently, Czékus's trying other forms of photography: hybrid, experimental and manual and digital collage to expand creativity and bring new elements to her work.

The work of Czékus is inspired by the passion for plants. As she walks through the streets and parks, her gaze is incessantly searching for leaves, flowers, seeds and trees of different shapes, colors and textures. She finds beauty in the small details of plants, from the most common to the most exotic. Czékus likes to think that plants present themselves to her, that they choose her, because some days she collects many of them and other days they don't even appear to her.

In her collections, Czékus strives to capture the majesty and beauty of nature. By carefully lighting, composing and organizing the scene, she reveals the architecture and the intrinsic exuberance of the plants. The way she chooses to light them suggests that they should be appreciated as the works of art that they are, in fact.

The botanical work of Czékus is inspired by artists such as the American photographer Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976), the German photographer Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) and the American photographer Edward Weston (1886-1958). Czékus understands photography as a powerful way to reveal the details of plants, enhancing the beauty of their curves and colors, as well as their natural imperfections. Capturing the characteristics of each leaf or flower, showing them as unique elements, as individuals, is what she sees in the work of these artists and is what directs her gaze and her camera.

---

This article about Ulla Czékus takes part of the 30th  magazine,  ARTICULATE #30. Read, download or order your print version of the full publication below. 

---