Introducing New Work: Andreas Rentsch

Posted on Jul 29, 2026

Andreas Rentsch, Untitled No.1, 2026

We are pleased to introduce new works by artist Andreas Rentsch. Rentsch is an artist and professor of photography at Lycoming College. For the first 18 years of his life, he lived on the prison compound in Switzerland where his father served as warden. This experience influenced him deeply and encouraged a profound empathy for the human condition. Years later, when the world was confronted with the horrors of the torture of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison, he was deeply affected and began creating the series Entangled with Justice.

This work begins with Polaroids created between 2005 and 2009. The now-discontinued Polaroid Type 55 film produced a high-quality black-and-white negative along with a positive print, both of which were processed simultaneously within 30 seconds of being removed from the film holder. Instead of fixing the print and negative immediately, Rentsch allowed both to continue processing for weeks, months, or even years. The positive prints would become unusable, but Rentsch sepia-toned the black-and-white negatives, and the impurities that developed over time resulted in fascinating and unique images. In 2025, he began using a brush and black paint to trace within the lines originally drawn with a flashlight and captured with a 4x5” camera, and the figures “came back to life.”