Time is still. Eternity prevails. The photographs of Arne Maasik

HEIE TREIER

Arne Maasik, an artist with an architectural background, works in a disciplined and serious manner, he is focused and doesn't permit himself any of the bohemianism often considered good form among painters and performance artists. An architect cannot be bohemian in his work the house he is designing would otherwise collapse.

Having evolved from architect towards photographer, Maasik decided to specialize in photography. This was a courageous step in Estonia, for as a rule, there's no demand for artists working in photography, just as there's no demand for the visual arts in general. At the moment, Maasik is known as one of the best Estonian photographers of (the soul of) architecture. Even the natural environment in his photographs is like architecture. Yet besides the material phenomena and forms Maasik captures with his camera, he photographs something else that cannot be put into words. His motivation for photographing a given motif seems to be its "overwhelming feeling", which may be defined as its psychology or aura or "as the critics have said about Maasik's photographs" the metaphysics of the picture.