Image: Atlas Gallery, London ; Andreas Gefeller Atlas Gallery
Atlas Gallery will present ‘Andreas Gefeller: Surface Tension’, a solo exhibition bringing together new and recent photographs by the Düsseldorf-based artist. The exhibition will run from 2 October to 14 November 2026 at Atlas Gallery in London, with a private view scheduled for 1 October from 6 to 8pm.
Gefeller, born in 1970, will show works from four bodies of work: ‘The Other Side of Light’ (2016–ongoing), ‘Clouds’ (2019–2021), ‘Aurora Urbanis’ (2024) and ‘Insight Out’ (2025–ongoing). The exhibition marks six years since his previous solo presentation at the gallery, ‘Mapping Perception’, held in 2020.
Several new large-scale photographs focused on water will be premiered in London. The works depict bodies of water including the coasts of England and the banks of the Rhine in Germany. Gefeller creates the images by digitally collaging hundreds of individual photographs, producing surfaces in which sunlight and reflections shimmer across the picture plane.
Although the images initially evoke recognisable seascapes and rivers, the compositions remove the familiar horizon line. The absence of that visual reference disrupts conventional impressions of distance and scale, placing the viewer within an image that is at once a physical depiction of water and an almost abstract field of light.
The new photographs extend concerns running through Gefeller’s wider practice. His series move between natural phenomena, urban environments, light, water and the less visible systems associated with digital experience. Across the exhibition, the gallery describes a sustained examination of the boundary between what is real and what is constructed, and between what can be seen and what remains outside ordinary perception.
Gefeller’s approach combines research, observation and digital construction. The resulting photographs retain the physical subjects of the natural world while altering their visual legibility, encouraging both close examination and an immediate sensory response. ‘Surface Tension’ presents this tension through images that are precise and luminous but also deliberately disorientating.
Atlas Gallery, which marked 30 years in business in 2024, has exhibited photography by artists including Hiroshi Sugimoto, Nan Goldin, William Klein and Niko Luoma. ‘Andreas Gefeller: Surface Tension’ will be on view at the London gallery from 2 October through 14 November 2026; the private view will take place on 1 October, from 6 to 8pm.
