Popel Coumou builds her own reality. Layer after layer she has always made two dimensional collages of photographs, paper, clay, photographs and many other materials. The pieces are carefully lit from the back and captured with an analogue camera, giving it a third dimension and bringing it to the border of reality and fiction, and photography and painting. In her earlier work, her pieces mainly take place inside spaces such as abandoned hotels and dusty hallways where the light governs straight lines.
Now her analogue photographs have become more abstract. She now looks at the horizon as a point of orientation, as well abstraction. She interprets physical limits of vision as one of the origins of abstract art, echoing steps taken by her illustrious predecessors from De Stijl, such as Mondrian and Van der Leck. Popel now combines landscape photography and paper with abstract lines to create new detailed compositions. She brings us the world in its purest state.