Thomas Andenmatten

Thomas Andenmatten is documenting barns and stables in the canton of Valais which were built over centuries from larch wood. He mainly focuses on the so-called “Gwätt” of old farm buildings no longer in use in villages and hamlets. “Gwätti” are corner-cut wall beams that keep dwellings, barns, stables and granaries stable. (“Gwätt” derived from wetten = to connect). The element appears in Andenmatten’s photographs as diverse as it is surprisingly multi-coloured: sun-tanned and banished black, dark grey those of the sides facing north. Green, yellow and reddish to light orange. those overgrown with lichen and moss; but white-grey those leached by road salt, brilliant blue those photographed in the morning light. Andenmatten adds his mostly square image sections up to multiplying reflections to a unified picture, to an ornament. Thus form and function of the “Gwätt” serve a composition. In archaic and enchanting aesthetics they merge into a trompe-l’oeil.