Tangram Still Lifes

Fred Johnsson Photography

Legend has it that a long time ago in China, there was a monk who tasked his apprentice with travelling the world and capturing its beauty on a square ceramic tablet. Unfortunately, the tablet broke into seven pieces that could no longer be reassembled into a square. He tried again and again, and many different shapes and figures emerged. That's when he realised: you don't have to travel around the world to find beauty and diversity. And it can't be captured in a single image either, but reveals itself in the infinite number of shapes, images and patterns that also emerge when the individual parts of his tablet are put together.

Tangram is a traditional Chinese tile-laying game. Cleverly combining the seven geometric pieces, which are formed from a square, allows an almost infinite number of figures to be created. In this way, simple shapes are used to create animals, people, plants and objects. I take Polaroids of the Tangram figures and combine them with ‘real’ objects to create small still lifes. I often draw inspiration from haiku, these short, multi-layered Japanese poems by Basho, Issa, Buson or other masters of this simple poetry. Or I try my hand at a three-liner. Haikus, in their simple beauty, go wonderfully with the equally simple Tangram still lifes.

A huge frog an I
Staring at each other
Neither of us moves

(Yosa no Buson, 1716 - 1783)

„Little girl….. happiness is within you…. so
unlock the chains from your heart
and let yourself grow -
like the sweet flower
you are…..
I know the answer - Just spread your wings
and set yourself
FREE

Love to you forever

Jimi Hendrix“

A beautiful love letter that Jimi Hendrix wrote to a girl he called ‘Little girl’ in 1967. I found it here on 21/3/2021: www.history-inpictures.tumblr.com.