Every ships hull tells a story, a painted one, that reveals a story in the abstract. Seaman and artist Klaus Lange focuses his camera on this wonderful narrative. The ships hull, like a great expressionist canvas, is the product of much life spent, much time passed, and much beauty found in the interim. In the tradition of great modernist photography, Lange captures both physical struggle and natural beauty. Langes photographs reference a type of modernist abstraction, optically not unlike a Jules Olitski, Clifford Still, Gerhard Richter or other great artists, depending on the ships paint. He locates the sublime within the worn surface on ship sides, and captures it on film. Through his photography, Lange changes the ships water-worn, sea-wary painted finish into a heroic skin of painted abstraction. In essence, he finds and highlights beautiful moments of abstraction found at sea. In this way his work is very traditional, yet Langes unique choice of painted subject matter makes his work quite radical as well. His subject matter is the ships story, as told by its own paint. The location of beauty in residue and narrative is nothing new, but Langes approach very much is.

Langes inaugural collection "Uncommon Perspectives" was exhibited in a month-long solo show at Emeryville, California's Watergate Community in the summer of 2002. Subsequently he has exhibited in juried shows including the East Bay Pro Arts Exhibit in California in December 2003, where his 30 image
collection "Schiffseiten" was presented. This, and the next series of 90 images, titled "The Mermaids Tears", have been set to new age sound to be viewed as an installation show.

The show has gone to the Raw Arts Festival 2004 in London and was successful in Hamburg at the Marziart Gallery in January of 2005. Now I am looking foward to a full museum show at the Überseemuseum in Bremen, Germany. A link to that show can be found on my homepage.