The American photographer Christian Heeb became known for his pictures of American landscapes and Indian portraits. After a long and successful career as a travel photographer, he started his American Dreamscapes series in 2011.
The darkness on the outskirts of the city and the world of the forgotten Americans in the province’s trailer parks are the content of Dreamscapes. Photographed with cinematic lighting and theatrical staging, he creates images with a strong evocative effect.
His pictures show an America away from the big tourist attractions and reflect a world full of American obsessions. Guns, sex and a fake religiosity can be found in a strangely emotionless stage full of nostalgic, transfigured ghost towns from America’s golden age.
The American Dreamscapes and the Road Movie pictures from the Lost Highway series find their climax in the Uncle Sam series where the photographer stages himself as “Captain America” grotesque road trip through the American empire in its last stage.
Moving from using a camera to painting, his latest work is bold and colorful, reminiscent of his travel photography and early work on Native America.
Man is an animal. For our ancestors, this was a self-evident statement. The first witnesses to human art are the cave paintings of prehistoric humans, which without exception depict animals. Man was both hunter and victim. The fact that animals have feelings and intelligence like humans is clearly evident when you live with nature. No animal is as inhuman as humans. Our civilization puts man above animals and stylizes Homo sapiens as the master of all things, which in reality leads to our collapsing world.
Christian Heeb paints the world of animals. In his paintings, humans and animals merge. In the mythology of many Native American tribes, the coyote stands out as an intelligent charlatan, symbolizing the limitations of humans in taming nature. The coyote, a Native American that has spread worldwide, is more common today than ever before, despite centuries of campaigns of extermination. The trickster laughs at the stupidity of people and moves between the realities of this world and the mythological fusion of spirit and earth. Christian Heeb’s coyote is a rogue who shows us a mirage image of our soul.
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