┐ Erwin Verstappen #2 └

Posted on November 3, 2011 by N

To call this fashion photography is just plain wrong! I believe he is just too good to be commercial. His images have infinite lives…

More of his work here

┐ Laurence Skivée └

Posted on June 3, 2011 by N

“À supposer que la photographie puisse ou doive servir à quelque chose, ce devrait être à fixer l’ordinaire, le mouvement de l’ordinaire, à arrêter simplement pour un instant le flux de l’ordinaire. Non pas tant en garder le souvenir visuel qu’en prélever quelque image fugace, positive, triste, ambigüe, sincère ou spontanée. Quitte, à l’occasion, à photographier des photographies.
L’art est inutile — c’est même à cela qu’on le reconnaît —, c’est ce qu’on en dit ; mais rien sans doute n’est aussi faux. Les photographies de Laurence Skivée me sont utiles. Je les regarde et j’en fais un usage. Je ne vais pas à la découverte du monde ou d’un univers. Je découvre une série d’images qu’un même regard organise dans sa spontanéité, son instantanéité. On sait qu’il y a une pensée derrière, on la comprend d’autant mieux que ce qui en apparaît apparaît simple et évident, naïf, c’est-à-dire : qui se tient au plus près de la vérité.
Ce sont des images prises avec un iPhone ou un Polaroid qui retiennent surtout mon attention. Je confronte ma façon de voir à la sienne. Je me dis : « Tiens, je n’aurais pas retenu une telle image. » J’ajoute, m’interrogeant : « Pourquoi ? ». Pourquoi s’arrête-t-on sur telle partie du ciel bleu ? Pourquoi retient-on tel livre ? Est-ce parce qu’on l’aime qu’on veut le montrer ? Est-ce parce que c’est simplement ce qu’on est en train de faire : le regarder, le lire ? La photographie ne sert pas à se souvenir. La photographie, c’est ce qu’on décide de montrer de ce que l’on voit. La photographie, c’est l’exposition de ce que nous avons pu voir. L’important, le plus important, n’est pas que ça a été là ; ç’aurait pu être ailleurs. Le plus important, c’est ce qu’on fait de ce qui a été là. Que les choses, les êtres, les paysages, les objets aient été là n’est pas indifférent au regard de la photographie, mais presque. Ce qui importe le plus, c’est le regard parce qu’il est exposition, parce qu’il entend montrer ce qu’il voit. Je vois à travers ce regard plus que je ne vois ce que ce regard voit. C’est trivial. Mais cette relation à la trivialité fait l’intérêt et l’utilité de la photographie. Apprendre à voir, peut-être. Apprendre à montrer, surtout. Apprendre l’attention. Ne pas avoir aux choses, aux êtres, aux paysages, aux objets, un rapport distant, distrait. Ne pas les prendre à la légère. Non. Les prendre en photographie.”

excerpt from a text by Jérôme Orsoni in Papier Esthétique, here

More of Laurence’s work here

┐ Tjorven Bruyneel └

Posted on February 18, 2011 by N

“Living in a Western society where virtually all taboos have fallen. Everything has been done, seen, admired, abhorred, nothing remains that can shock.

But are we really that free?

“I’ll be your mirror” became a social depiction of a taboo conflict that is considered as nonexistent in the artistic community. It reflects on how characters in my life experience their own bodies. Every person is linked to a cultural history, and his or her body is scarred by that. Their story carrying bodies voice the answer to my ever returning question:

Will you pose nude for me on photograph?

Come, please undress …
Let me see you,
Through your eyes.”

More of Tjorven’s work here

┐ Sabrina Biancuzzi └

Posted on December 7, 2010 by N

“Specialised in film photography and old-style development processes, Sabrina Biancuzzi is both a photographer and engraver. A young woman passionate about what she does, she loves both working in the lab and the grain of film stock. Through her images she lets us glimpse our own distortions, those of dreams and the unconscious. Her personal voyages between dream and reality, today and yesterday, Paris and Brussels, show the world that our nights explore.”

More of Sabrina’s work can be seen here

║ Debby Huysmans ║

Posted on July 9, 2010 by N

“The collapse of the Soviet empire has resulted in a fascinating political and social situation. The projects Elementarz (2003), Last Stop before Europa (2005) and In a Valley (2007) are a research on the periphery of the Western European capitalist culture.
With the recent work Sibir Debby Huysmans continues this photographic research.
The two longest rivers of Russia, the Yenissey and the Lena, guide the photographer through the contemporary Siberian landscape. Huysmans concentrates on the individuals, living in these forgotten areas and the signs of human presence in relation to the landscape.

Remainders of dreams of the past and signs of hope for tomorrow appear through the daily environment.
The characters seem to experience an \’old\’ world under the impoverished conditions of a pre-capitalist reality. Nothing much seems to happen, the pace of life is slow and the images are fully quiet. They often expose undefined, lost spaces nobody seems to notice anymore.”

More of Debby’s work can be found here

║ Karin Borghouts ║

Posted on June 3, 2009 by N

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“Many stereotypes are creations of the mass media, tourist bureaux or some other someones. Among Karin Borghouts’ photographs is one of a viewing platform placed on top of a hill. Had Borghouts been carried away by her pre-existing images of Japan, she may have photographed the view from atop the viewing platform. After all, the view from there may have been recommended as a splendid one, or may present a distinctly Japanese prospect (or one purportedly exemplary of that area, as defined by some somebody). What Borghouts photographed, however, was the path leading to that viewing platform (paved in concrete and lined with plants to left and right), the viewing platform itself and the scene in which it lay (well-tended lawn, safety fencing to the rear, outdoor lighting fixtures). Here is the very image of contemporary Japan: clean, safe, managed down to the minutiae with seemingly pointless solicitude. While this may not be unrelated to her stereotype of Japan, it seems more accurate to call the scene she discovered a new archetype of contemporary Japan.”

excerpt from an article written by Mikiko Kikuta. To read the full article click here

To see more of Karin’s work click here

║ Xavier Delory ║

Posted on June 1, 2009 by N

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La semaine, l’homme moderne travaille dur, mais le week-end arrivé le short est de rigueur, le tout dans un décor qui flore bon le préfabriqué.

Série “Homo Urbanus” et “Homo Festivus”, diptyque sur l’homme moderne.
Les personnages de la série “Homo Urbanus” ont été photographiés aux abords de passages pour piéton de la Communauté Européenne, puis intégrés dans leur nouvel environnement. Les personnages de la série “Homo Festivus” quand à eux, ont été photographiés sur la Grand Place de Bruxelles. Le décor (construit comme une oeuvre minimaliste), gris et bitumé pour l’urbain, coloré avec un fond d’Eurovision pour le festif.

Ces deux séries mélangent l’approche de “l’instant décisif” chère à Cartier Bresson et celle plus conceptuelle héritée de l’école de Düsseldorf (les Becher). urbanus7

To see more of Xavier’s work click here

║ Kumi Oguro ║

Posted on April 27, 2009 by N

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“Perhaps unwittingly or even in spite of itself, Kumi Oguro’s photographic work has from the outset been drawn towards cinema. This influence has led the photographer to explore the theoretical, historic, visual and manifestly numerous relationships between her own photography and the language of cinema. This permeation could not be described as a debt in the strict sense, nor is it nurtured by explicit or obliging citations or references. Instead it feels its way, spontaneously seeking its own path and its own markers.

From her earliest exhibitions and publications and even in the recent developments of her highly personal series “NOISE”, compiled here in the coherent form of a book, these relationships (the staging of locations, placing bodies in real-life situations, the expressionist use of light, the theatrical play between actors, indications of an off-camera area, effects designed to create tension, veiled references to the logic of genres, etc.) have become undeniably more complex, but also increasingly diverse.”

Emmanuel d’Autreppe

To see more of Kumi”s work click here

Nihilsentimentalgia

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