Reto Camenisch’s (1958, Thun) photographs are the result of a lightly guided search on the winding paths of life. He understands impressively how to trace the essence of a landscape or of nature and to capture it in unmistakable pictures.

They are encounters of immediate directness, views into a familiar universe, yet only to be experienced through the artist’s eye, constantly oscillating from the macrocosm into a microcosm. Whether in the lovely Swiss mountains, in the rugged Ireland or on dreamy beaches, the landscape is always in the center – rapt and timeless. Only nature and time. This is how the pictures work on a different level. Although they are familiar on the one hand, on the other hand they are always attached to the idea of supposed, almost unattainable ideal landscapes. In their monumentality even the smallest details have an effect, individual stones, leaves or trees and tell of the passage of time. The images become arenas of openness and space, the symbol of untamed freedom.

On his walks in the woods around Bantigen and Geristein, the artist found well-hidden sandstone. After the great Bern fire of April 28, 1405 just this sandstone was mined in large quantities and used for the reconstruction of the city. Today, these mining areas are overgrown with moss and lichens, but there are always traces of former mining or stone-scrawled messages, wisdom or memories. So Reto Camenisch discovered the title of the exhibition ‹Everywhere lonely and yet nowhere abandoned›.