Photography as Invitation: Discovering Abstraction in Nature

The photographs of Christian Vermeiren are drawn to what is almost not there – the point where landscape slips towards abstraction. Snow, sea, fog and forest are reduced to a few lines and tones, leaving large, quiet spaces of white and grey.

His images are minimalist and restrained: soft northern light, gentle whites, muted colours. They deliberately avoid the saturated colours of spectacular landscape photography, in favour of pictures that whisper and stay with the viewer slowly.

Vermeiren often works with reflections, veils and partial views, so it is not always immediately fixed what is being seen: inside or outside, sky or water, surface or depth. By holding back information, the photographs offer a space for the viewer’s own imagination; each image can be interpreted in several ways, and those readings may shift over time.

Rather than describing specific places, these works function as invitations – to pause, to follow a horizon or a fragile line, and to inhabit for a moment a small, attentive uncertainty.