Tim Thiel: There are 2 deep passions in my life: photography and working with horses. I have been in the saddle since I was 6 years old and I have also been taking photographs since I was a child. I attended photo lab courses as a teenager to delve deeper into photography and owned my first Nikon SLR camera. What has always fascinated me about art is the freedom of expression that it has given me. I was very successful in commercial photography very early on and that always distracted me somewhat from my art projects. In the commercial sector, on the other hand, my work was often perceived as too free and artistic. The courage to concentrate fully on this has grown steadily over the years. Since we launched our first exhibition in 2012 to great interest, we have continued to work intensively on Blumay.
A photograph always serves as a frozen moment, capturing light, emotion, and narrative within its frame. From this static image, we embark on a journey of interpretation and expression, utilizing various mediums to breathe new life into the captured moment. Painting, with its rich palette of colors and fluid strokes, adds another layer of complexity and interpretation to the original photograph. Ultimately, each artwork born from a photograph is a testament of our vision and our creative ingenuity.

ATM: Can you tell us something about the work series that you first exhibited at the Manoir in Belgium and which has found a permanent place there?

Blumay: Iceland offers a surreal landscape with Its volcanic terrain, jagged coastlines and is an endless inspiration for any keen-eyed photographer. We traveled across the lonely Highlands of Iceland on horseback to get to places
that can’t be reached on foot or by car. We worked closely together and create every photo, every moment of our work together: as Blumay we travel to certain places and very consciously choose the locations and motifs, including the perspective and the impression we want to capture. Iceland was our momentum to bring Blumay to the outside world and the works that now hang in Manoir des Lebioles were created. A series of 23 works in which we have intensified photographs with drawings, color and different materials, added further layers or finalized them as an installation. The works are about the Highlands of Iceland, the mysticism, the structures of the local nature, the horses, the moments. Our work as an art duo reflects our joint creative work on site – our editing afterwards tells the story to the end.