Studio of the German Fine Art Photographer Thomas Kellner

Thomas Kellner's fine art photography changes the object of the image and questions what we see. This continuous reinvention of himself and of the formal method always leads to new options for interpretation. 

A selection of Thomas Kellner's work shows analog compositions from the period of 1997 to 2023. Beginning from the idea of Cubism after Delaunay, he transfers the international movement of Deconstructivism from architecture to photography today. He photographs buildings, deconstructs and fragments them and assembles them into a heterogeneous conglomerate of forms. And yet, his famous montages of architectural attractions and architectural icons in cubist contact sheets like the Grand Canyon, the Golden Gate Bridge or the Great Wall of China,  are just one type of his multifaceted works. He uses to change our perspective and link art to our thinking. Prof. Irina Chmyreva from the Academy in Moscow defined his work as "visual analytical synthesis".

His numerous pinhole camera projects, including portraits, demonstrate that an image cannot be planned. Each portrait is unique and reveals a new side of photography to its viewer. Documentary photography however, not only mirrors a changing culture and society, but also bears witness to an evolving photographic art in the medium of photography. Kellner's architectural photography opens up a view of the polarity of a building. The appraisal and condemnation of the subject's emerging changes is as dualistic as the architectural entity itself. Whether collage, typology or installation, his works play with our perception: they show us only fragments and then again, the whole. They always open up new points of view. 

German artist Thomas Kellner was born in Bonn, Germany in 1966. He studied art, sociology, politics and economics at the University of Siegen. In 1996 he received the Kodak Young Talent Award, which encouraged him to live as an artist. Since then, Kellner has been living in Siegen as a photographer and curator of photographic exhibition projects. In 2003 he was appointed to the German Society for Photography (DGPh).
Thomas Kellner has shown his work in solo exhibitions in Germany, Australia, Russia, China, France, Poland, Denmark and the USA since 2002. He has been involved in numerous group exhibitions and publications. His works are represented in important private and public collections. Those are for example Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock Abbey, United Kingdom, George Eastman House, Rochester, USA, Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia, USA, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, among others.

Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock Abbey, United Kingdom
George Eastman House, Rochester, USA
Haverford Collection, Haverford, Philadelphia, USA
Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA
Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
New Mexico Museum of History, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, USA
The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA
The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
The Boston Athenaeum, Boston, USA
The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio, USA
The Hood Museum, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

Member of VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany

Sign up for the newsletter. You can receive regular information from the studio of the German fine art photographer Thomas Kellner.