Erik Stenbeck - Photography
Artist Statement
I do not regard photography as a means of documenting people, nature or architecture.
Rather, I see it as a way of exploring how the outer world and the inner life meet.
The landscapes, mountains, waters, birds and human traces that appear in my photographs are not simply motifs. They are reflections of memory, uncertainty, longing and the passage of time. Through photography, I seek moments in which nature becomes a psychological landscape,
a place where personal experience, imagination and perception intersect.
My long-term project, Uncertain Certainty, examines this fragile balance between what we believe we know and what remains open, ambiguous and unresolved. I am interested in how photographs can evoke questions rather than provide answers, and how they can invite viewers into a contemplative space.
Influenced by art history, literature and philosophy, and inspired by writers such as William Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Marcel Proust, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hermann Hesse and artists such as Edvard Munch and Tom Sandberg, I approach photography as a form of reflection rather than description.
I hope my images create moments of reflection in which viewers may discover not only something about the photographs, but also something about themselves.
Erik Stenbeck - Photography
The Mountain We Climb
The mountains—majestic, immovable, eternal—appear profoundly different when seen in shifting light, changing weather, or from a new...
Stages
This variation in perception is not just a visual phenomenon; it mirrors how we experience the world within us and around us. Just as light...
Nature´s Response
Uncertain Certainty is a visual meditation on the paradoxes that shape human existence. Through a series of photographs, it explores the...
Light dwells behind the Night
Themes of transformation, struggle, and renewal recur throughout the series. Works such as «In Transition», «Changing Times», and «Into the...
"A Bird of Prey rests inside of Me" from "The Perspective of Power"
The Perspective of Power investigates power as a spatial, visual, and symbolic construct. Drawing on the metaphor of elevation, the project...
Beyond Existence
Stages 2
As every flower fades and all youth Departs, so life at every stage, So every virtue, so our grasp of truth, Blooms in its day and may not...
The Unknown
Alone
Whispering Hope
The Last Supper - After
The empty room at Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid reminds me of “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci, the place of one of this world’s best...
Divine Light
Closeness
Deep is the Ocean - The Origin?
Nature, time, and mortality weave through the project as reminders of our shared fragility. From «Deep Is the Ocean – the Origin?» to «It...
Into the Abyss
Anatomy of a lived Life
My work “Anatomy Of A Lived Life” shows an elderly woman in two versions, where one is detailed while the other is unclear. She is looking...
Dreams of lost Time
My photo is from a beach in Lekeitio in the north of Spain with the various effects of the tide on the landscape. The title „Dreams Of Lost...
"A Bird of Prey" from "The Perspective of Power"
The Perspective of Power investigates power as a spatial, visual, and symbolic construct. Drawing on the metaphor of elevation, the project...
It´s Complicated
Doubt - Who owns the Truth?
Aftermath
In Transition
Before the Storm
Traces
Exhibition - FotoNostrum Barcelona
As if from a Fairy Tale 1
The mountains of the Dolomites rise like ancient giants, powerful and silent. Light finds its way through the cloud cover and settles in...
"Flying High" from "The Perspective of Power"
The Perspective of Power investigates power as a spatial, visual, and symbolic construct. Drawing on the metaphor of elevation, the project...
"High They Fly" from "The Perspective of Power"
The Perspective of Power investigates power as a spatial, visual, and symbolic construct. Drawing on the metaphor of elevation, the project...
The Wind - It was not
THE WIND IT WAS NOT “I circle around God, around the primordial tower… and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?” —...
The Mountain We Climb
THE MOUNTAIN WE CLIMB Some landscapes are more than places—they reflect something deeply human. The mountain becomes not only a physical...
"When The Vulture Watches" from the project "The Perspective of Power"
The Perspective of Power investigates power as a spatial, visual, and symbolic construct. Drawing on the metaphor of elevation, the project...
