In “Colourful Mist” photographer Ondrej Chmel used landscape installations to fabricate the environment. Personally, he's convinced about the significance, the influence and the ability of the environment to form its surroundings. The environment affects us as individuals, it shapes our attitudes, beliefs and opinions, in other words it has indisputable impact on us. As a result it might not be possible is being diminished between the effects of the environment and our given set of values. The borderline between the artificial and the natural is being diminished to the point where the individual merges with the environment and becomes its product.

In order to accomplish my idea, I had to come up with material that would correspond with the environment but to work as well with the medium I have been using - photography. Colourful aerosol is a substance that can be manipulated with, it is diverse in shape, yet it also maintains a certain structure. Aerosol inserted into the environment also represents a human presence, which is otherwise missing. I see my installations as a performance without the audience.
-Ondrej Chmel

In the beginning, the main focus of the project aimed at the materiality of the colour, its forms, types... But at the same time I was finishing my research on social-engineering. Obviously while affected with the results of the research, I had a tendency to reshape, limit and control the shape of colours. Eventually, I had very pleasing results with colourful aerosols, also known as smoke bombs.
-Ondrej Chmel

I see “Colourful Mist” as "daylight" if you like, continuity of my previous visual work. After several projects, I realized that I´m more interested in the light aspect of colour than the concept of surrounding space. In the past, I previously dealt mainly with the processes of altering the surrounding spaces. It was usually achieved with a use of rather large variety of external sources of light that were installed and exposed at dark while long exposure.
-Ondrej Chmel

I tried many installations, always with the aim to have even better control over the whole shape of the aerosol. Once I felt that I have the ability to build up controlled environment (usually made of layers of transparent foils installed around support structure), I found out that it is not enough to master the skill as long as the result didn't seem natural. The images missed the aspect of randomness, and eventually became too obvious. It didn't really go hand in hand with the concept of invisible control of the environment. I therefore made a step back in order to make the installation more subtle, further merged, and connected with given environment.
-Ondrej Chmel

I appreciate the craft. I appreciate the process of how things are made. I consider myself a slow-worker. Approaches that I usually use, consist of light-painting and techniques that are often combined with landscape installations, made during one single long exposure. In terms of visual and spatial influence, I love simplicity of Edgar Martins masterpieces and the monumental without compromise of Christo and Jeanne Claude´s art. But very often the content influence comes from thoughts and knowledge of interesting thinkers and their legacy.
-Ondrej Chmel

I don´t feel that I have yet achieved enough to be able to give advice. But perhaps I would say this much: Be the person whom you at the end of a day create the work for. If someone likes it - great, if not - that´s fine, too, as long as it doesn't stop you from creating more...
-Ondrej Chmel

About Ondrej Chmel

Ondrej Chmel - Born in 1988, in the Czech Republic. After graduating with honors from Fine Art Photography at the Glasgow School of Art, he achieved Masters of Letters with Distinction in 2012. Lives in Prague. Currently works in film & advertisement productions. His art works were exhibited in Glasgow, London, Helsinki, Prague etc. See more of his works on Behance.