His oeuvre explores a variety of topics that regularly bring him back to France, his longed-for country. Since 2005, Esser journeys there often to compose the ‘Combray’ series. Inspired by Marcel Proust’s novel 'In Search of Lost Time', these black-and-white photographs develop a pastoral narrative that seems anchored in a distant past. Articulated around such cultural witnesses as churches, bridges, forests, villages, rivers, shipwrecks and ruins – that also stem from Esser’s passion for postcards – the ‘Combray’ pictures are captivating because they take the viewers’ experience and recollections as the starting point of a journey into collective memory.

For the ‘Morgenland’ series, Esser travelled to Lebanon (2005), Egypt (2011) and Israel (2015), recording almost monochromatic landscapes permeated with a blazing light that compose seemingly everlasting vistas. These timeless photographs draw a map leading to the roots of Western culture while avoiding any post-colonial stance. Esser’s journey is a conceptual and visual odyssey around the Mediterranean Sea – the cradle of our modern way of thinking.

Elger Esser continues to live and work in Düsseldorf. His most recent institutional exhibitions include shows at the Musée de la Mer, Cannes (2021); the Fondation Fernet-Branca, Saint-Louis (2019); the Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London (2017); Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe (2016); the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Tampa, FL (2014); Institut für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg, Nuremberg (2014); and the LVR-LandesMuseum, Bonn (2012). His photographs belong to numerous public collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; and the mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, amongst others.