One Picture at a Time is a collection of Smoliansky’s striking photographs. Running at Michael Hoppen Gallery, London, until 31 August, the exhibition demonstrates the Swedish artist’s interest in capturing the almost impossible. Born on the Swedish island of Gotsby, Smoliansky was obsessed with the camera from the age of eighteen when he bought his own Rolleiflex. Inspired by his homeland, his location was exclusively the subject of his work. Shooting images of everyday objects, gloves suspended from a window, a cloud passing over water, the silhouette of a tree like an ink spill on a white page; his works carry an aesthetic beauty and cinematic suspense.

Although Smoliansky’s work demonstrates a Swedish melancholy, it is also part of a broader European photojournalistic tradition. Very much like the practice of André Kertész, his eye distills its subject. Form and line are used economically while unorthodox camera angles and aerial views render the subject abstract. In an age of destination photography where the exoticism of the subject often defines the photographer, Smoliansky seeks to find the extraordinary within the everyday.

Gunnar Smoliansky: One Picture at a Time, until 31 August, Michael Hoppen Gallery, 3 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TD.

Credits
1. Saltsjö-Boo 2002, image courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery and Gunnar Smoliansky.