With impeccable consistency and considered restraint, Mario Lamma finds remarkable eloquence in a sermo humilis, a language of deliberate simplicity. The subjects — subjects, not objects — of his photographs, whether stones, plants or twigs, become active starting points for a reflection that is never merely symbolic, but philosophically alive. Because this is simply how things are: nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed.

This is our world, seen from afar, from high above or spread out across a map. Yet it is also simply the ground beneath our feet as we move through life: the earth that accompanies us and ultimately awaits us. We may play with time, but in the end, time plays with us.

Strip away the adjectives and a handful of nouns are enough to describe Lamma’s work as a photographer: consistency, restraint, humility. Photography is not simply the image we see; it also lies in the act that produces it. As Henri Cartier-Bresson observed, making sense of the world requires involvement in what appears within the viewfinder. It demands concentration, mental discipline, sensitivity and a sense of geometry. Simplicity of expression can only be achieved through an economy of means.

Lamma has long cultivated this way of seeing and working, with the persistence and determination of an artist who does not reproduce reality simply to show us what is there. Instead, he returns it to us as something true: as he sees it, as he feels it. His desire is to share that experience, with the awareness that what is will pass, but what has been remains.