‘Swedish Landscapes’, photo exhibition, on display at Atrium
During the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020, when nature had a chance to regain its magic in less polluted air and water, the artist Jaro Waldeck spent time isolating in Sweden, often outdoors with her camera, capturing the stillness of the world around her.
Art lovers in Mullingar have a chance to see some of those images when Waldeck’s collection, ‘Swedish Landscapes’, a photographic solo art exhibition, goes on display at the Atrium in Mullingar County Buildings between April 17 and 28.
Waldeck earned a Bachelors degree in film and video from Columbia College Chicago in 2008, with specialisation in cinematography. On graduation, she was an intern with Phedon Papamichael, ASC on a feature film ‘W.’, directed by Oliver Stone.
She later moved to Prague and was accepted into the Master’s in cinematography degree at the Film and TV Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU), which accepts only four students per year.
Jaro graduated in 2011 and was invited into the Czech Society of Cinematographers.
In 2012 she moved to Ireland, and since then, she has worked on more than 50 narrative and documentary features, shorts, music videos, TV reality and documentary series.
Jaro has recently completed her first live-action feature ‘Dreamtown’, shot in Dublin, and is to start production on a feature documentary this month.
Jaro says that through herstudies of photography and cinematography, she has learned from the masters of imagery and storytelling and has acquired an in-depth knowledge of the mechanical, optical, physical and chemical properties of image capture, whether on film or on a digital sensor.
Whether through depth of field, field of view, time of exposure or the sensitivity of the originating medium, Jaro seeks to accentuate elements of any given moment to create the most beautiful, mesmerising image.
Because of her family connection to Sweden, she often travels there and explores the landscapes and nature of that land – which can be barren or wooded, and is dotted with countless lakes of different sizes. On windless days, the surface of the water is like the most precisely poured mirror. Pastel colours on clear days, monochrome on misty mornings.