Ulrich Mertens (*1957) is a Hamburg-based German artist-photographer. He studied visual communication at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld/Germany.

Our planet does not give up its wealth voluntarily. Man needs tools to extract it. No resource is safe from exploitation anymore. It is this interface between man and machine and nature that forms the permanent reference point of Ulrich Mertens‘ work. Specifically, it is the landscapes formed and transformed by the impact of technology. Be it underground or facing the wind above the earth’s surface: It is at the peaks and amplitudes where things often become more vigorously apparent. As if looking at the world from the outside. A little peculiar maybe, but even clearer for that very reason.