Born in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1968, Stephan Goettlicher took up photography after a 15-year international career as a classical and modern ballet dancer.

A self-taught photographer, the still image quickly became a passion and he started to provide the theaters with photography for publications and programing while working as a dancer.

Moving to Hamburg to assist some of Germany’s best industrial, portrait and fashion photographers during this time, proved to be invaluable formative experiences of the craft, just prior to the dominance of digital.

He became a freelance photographer in Hamburg in 2000, working for editorials and advertising agencies in Germany and Milan/Italy.

Based in Miami since 2008 and in Chicago since 2018, he is pursuing and developing his personal work further and began to show in galleries and various group shows.

“The camera ground glass has become my newfound stage”

A Different Time and Space (In My Universe)

Stephan Goettlicher

Opening 4.4.2026 6 -9pm

“My personal work is often black and white and has always been recorded on film emulsion, ever since I began using photography as my medium.

Over the last few years, that part of my work changed significantly; from the outside to the inside is the best way to describe the transformation.

I feel it has also become a way to cope with what is going on in the world around me and where I’m at with myself. 

Going back to what photography really is for me, a simple yet fascinating way to record with light and time, was an important step. It also helped me to realize that I was never very interested in documenting moments and situations with photography.

I would have liked to become a painter or sculptor at one point early on, but it was clear very soon that this was not in me. I ended up picking dance and movement instead, the fleeting and temporary moment with the body as the instrument to shape and form the works. It was an intense and beautiful, but also impermanent time.

Now I’m able to capture time through light with a recording device, and the more I try, I get the feeling there is still a lot of my past involved in the process, theatrical, and somehow the stills are always in motion.

The series ‘A Different Time and Space (In My Universe)’ is part of my pursuit to create photography rather than take it. I love to work in the studio environment and was looking for a material to use for a series of abstract ‘landscapes' and 'sculptures’ I had in mind. 

Paper was my first and obvious choice because it is familiar to me through my day-to-day work. But the shapes did not materialize; there was not enough depth, and they felt distant and lightweight to me. 

While looking for a material that was familiar and somehow close to me, this black, non-reflective, and heat-resistant metal foil came to mind. 

A material that was ever-present backstage at theaters and also in film and photo studios. Strong enough, it is used to shape and control light at its source to prevent it from wandering about, a true wanderer of time from my past…

The first results already had more depth and a certain theatrical vibe that I was looking for, but the shaping and forming needed to feel more independent and surprising. 

After an initial idea to ask people close to me to bring the material into form, I started to do little improvisational dances in the studio, ‘pas de deux’ between the material and myself. First out of a certain frustration, later with music, different speeds and rhythms, or just to the sound of the material itself.

This brought things into line for me, resulting in shapes I wanted to investigate further and ‘capture’ as a result.

Looking at the pictures now, I’m reminded of the feelings I had while they materialized, the movements during their ‘morphing’ process, and I’m hoping that some ’space’ is left to be discovered as well...

‘Scheinwerfer’ (2024 - ongoing) is a series that is at the core of what I’m looking for with my work. “