Town hall gallery opening Holger Stark

Holger Stark sees his photography as non-figurative painting; people, stories and places are hidden and it is difficult to identify the images. He has taken "picture samples" from the small town in northwest Mecklenburg as if with an eyedropper. The artist's gaze wanders from the founding period of the Sonnenkamp monastery in the 13th century, the multiple radical upheavals in the 20th century, to present-day life in the town and its interior. He took photographs in the church, the bakery, the car repair shop, the veterinary practice, the gravel pit and other locations.

When looking at the Neukloster coat of arms, one notices a narrative, curious diversity that inspired the artist. A photographic search for clues in a country town whose split coat of arms is described as follows: in front in gold a half facing, golden crowned black bull's head at the split with red mouth torn open, silver teeth, red tongue turned out, neck fur torn off in points and silver horns; behind in red an oblique silver abbess' staff with a golden crook turned to the left, accompanied on both sides by a silver heraldic fleur-de-lys.