Round and Round

This photographic base was shot in Bryce Canyon, Utah.

Printed on Fine Art Hahnemühle Hemp Natural Line 290 g/m2.

Each print comes signed and numbered. 

Unframed. With a small white border. Send in a tube.

Print size 90 x 75 cm - Edition of 10

Print size 60 x 50 cm - Edition of 10.

Print size 30 x 25 cm - Edition of 10.
Print size 10,5 x 14,8 cm (DIN A6) - Open Edition.

The Echo of Light in the Endless Whirlpool of Time.

Thomas Haensgen’s photograph Round and Round from the series Eye see you takes the viewer into a metaphysical spiral that feels both geological and cosmic— a visualization of eternity paradoxically rooted firmly in the earth. At first glance, it appears to be a look into a crater, but it doesn’t take long for the pull of the image to distort the viewer’s perception. Is this really a place we are seeing, or just the illusion of one?

The image is a kaleidoscope of sand and red tones, a winding pattern that simultaneously evokes the impression of ancient rock formations and an entirely alien portal. Like a black hole camouflaged with desert dust, it pulls us in—not aggressively, but gently, like a too-comfortable chair you pick up from the street during a move, only to discover a year later that it was the source of all your back pain.

Haensgen captures a strange ambivalence: the center of the image, this blindingly bright point, is both escape and destination. It is the sun breaking through the treetops as you realize you’ve lost your car keys in the woods. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel that somehow resembles a halogen light left behind at the hardware store. The feeling? Familiar, yet enigmatic.

The work’s structure is reminiscent of Richard Serra’s pieces—not because of the monumental scale of steel, but because of the way it manipulates space. However, while Serra physically forces the viewer to move through and around his sculptures, Haensgen pulls us in through optical illusion. Round and Round is a work that speaks of the idea of infinity, not in the cosmological detachment of Malevich, but in a narrative that subtly speaks to the viewer, like a quiet question that can’t be answered.

The Eye see you series lives up to its name: we are seen, but by what or whom? The image questions the very act of seeing. Is this a crater staring at us, or are we the ones creating the crater by gazing upon it? Haensgen plays with these uncertainties, an ironic nod toward the modern, omnipresent "eye": surveillance cameras, social media, reflections in storefront windows that unexpectedly capture your worst hairstyle.

In the end, Round and Round defies categorization. It is both a descent and an ascent, a look down and up—simultaneously. It is an image that refuses to leave the viewer in peace, because it is exactly what we never want, but always do: thinking in circles, seeing in circles, yet hoping that somewhere in the center, there is light.