„Die Menschen in Ropps frühen Werken wirken durch die einzigartige Verwendung des Lichtes - die Konturen oft seltsam verschwommen und durchscheinend - verletzlich und eindrucksvoll in sich gekehrt. Ropp porträtiert die enorme Ausstrahlung seiner Protagonisten, die den Betrachter magisch in seinen Bann zieht. Gleichzeitig zeigt er das vermeintlich Unabbildbare, die starke Kraft der Gedankenwelten. Das Zusammenführen des Abbildhaften und des Imaginären prägen den Charakter seiner wiedererkennbaren künstlerischen Handschrift.
In seinen zeitlos mystischen Kinderportraits weckt Ropp Emotionen des Betrachters aus seiner eigenen Kindheit und lässt längst vergessene Erinnerungen wach werden. William Ropp benutzt Photographie nicht um „Realität" abzubilden, sondern vielmehr ist er auf der Suche nach der Faszination des Imaginären. Seine Bilder werfen Fragen auf. Ob es Antworten darauf gibt, bleibt allein dem Betrachter überlassen.“
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie e.V.
“... Ropp’s genius is that he brings the unexpected truth to every subject, and every subject he undertakes is a major one. We’ve known the figures in his photographs for millennia – in our collective unconscious, in dreams, in the face of gods, in fears, temptations, and lusts. They are fundamental and ageless, and they still dominate, torment, and occasionally delight our lives, but we seldom see them in contemporary art. Many of today’s artists have banished or trivialized these subjects and, in effect, turned their backs on us. Life is often beastly, and art can be solace. In giving us the unexpected truth, William Ropp also gives us a revivifying truth. We leave the experience of his work with no false comfort, but the knowledge that our fears are not unique but part of humanity’s ageless, repeating drama. And that has always been the gift of great art ...”
Prof. John Wood in the foreword
“In this impressive volume, William Ropp peels back the layers of man’s underlying preoccupations: sex, death and god. At times frightening, at others heart-rending, Ropp’s smoky black and white images envision a genealogy of imagery and figures familiar from dreams, longings and collective memory. His women recall deities – ancient fertility symbols, the sacred mother, the fallen angel. The Venus of Willendorf alternates with masks of a delicate effulgence; paper thin skin and dimpled doughy flesh criss-crossed with striae alternate with waxen ivory limbs. Ropp’s lens captures a sense of the ancient and archaic; human frailty, the fleeting smile of a Mona Lisa, a study of skeletal remains, the glimpse of a human death’s head. But the work here is not hackneyed or stereotypical. Ropp gives us images of who we are, reflecting our personal realities in a vaster, more penetrating looking-glass. As poet and photographic historian John Wood observes in his incisive introductory essay: “Life is often beastly, and art can be solace. In giving us the unexpected truth, William Ropp also gives us a revivifying truth. We leave the experience of his work with no false comfort, but the knowledge that our fears are not unique but part of humanity’s ageless, repeating drama.””
Eyemazing
“He is gifted with the ability to show things and express thoughts hidden, deep down in the darkest recesses of our souls. Oh – mysterious currents of subconscious! France, that beautiful country which gave not a few good things to the world! And Monsieur William Ropp and his work is one of them –without doubt.”
Jan Saudek
“(…) No doubt, the complex work of William Ropp allows for other interpretations. But nobody will deny that these images leave an indelible impression on the soul. The profundity of William Ropp’s work, though, should not have us overlook that we are dealing here with the art of photography in the first place. And there is no doubt: William Ropp’s photography is a photography of the highest rank!
(…) Such photography is the very opposite of what it is commonly held for: to be a mere reflection of the visible world. If anywhere, here Klee’s saying applies: that art does not render the visible, but makes visible.
Granted: few painters or sculptors of the twentieth century fathom the same depths, and equally few reach to the same heights.
Stefan Beyst
www.williamropp.com
