A poetic…sentiment [can be] associated with the series Seerosen (Water Lillies), a motif of Frank Mädler has come across in various places over many years. And yet it is about something other than the nature motif, which in a way is merely the motive for a reflection on what constitutes an image. These fourteen photographs, some monumental in size, are inevitably reminiscent of Monet's paintings by virtue of their panel-like character; here Frank Mädler explores the relationship between two dimensionality  and depth, light and dark, and the potential of colour contrasts. The essence of photography as a two-dimensional medium is rendered through the motif. The plant's floating leaves, green, delicate pink or silver in sheen, are resting directly on the water, tripling the concept of two-dimensional flatness, particularly in those instances where the water is rendered opaque through reflected light.
A metallic glimmer prevents us from glimpsing into its depths. In other photographs, the space that lies beneath the surface is hinted at darkly through the slender red flower stems drooping downwards. But sometimes they look more like intersecting lines. The fact that these are purely optical phenomena that could not be observed in nature itself is impressively demonstrated by the photograph where the stems, which are actually straight, suddenly appear curved due to the refraction of light.                                                                                                             - Agnes Matthias                                                                    Tafelwerk, Leonhardi Museum, June, 2016