Art Gallery
Exhibitions - Sales
Two exhibitions from June 19 to July 14 2022
"PHENOGRAPHIES"
Francis TEYNIER
Figures en
paysage(s)
sculptures
Philippe
CACHEUX
Porte -plumes
Nathalie
HOUDIN
"FLAMINGO"
Jonathan LHOIR
Florence Devaux-Dabenoc
I love to explore many areas of photography.
What I like is to try to look at the world around me differently, to compose with the light, the atmospheres, the framing, the movement,
to identify attitudes, pictorial details, to flirt with the abstract sometimes, in a word to CREATE.
I have a particular affection and attraction for black and white. I find that it allows to go to the essential, to give another dimension to the image and often to exacerbate the graphics.
But whatever technique you choose, the essential is elsewhere. The key word is emotion.
And when I manage to convey the one I felt or the one that the viewer will appropriate by looking at the image,
it is very fulfilling!
TWIGA
Her exhibition TWIGA ('giraffe' in Swahili) is dedicated to this iconic animal of the African continent and yet endangered.
This giant of the savannah has lost 40% of its numbers in the last thirty years! "Giraffes are facing a silent extinction" (IUCN).
The main threat is linked to rapid demographic growth and economic development, which are leading to significant deforestation, and without forests giraffes cannot survive.
Jacques Prévert wrote in his premonitory Opéra des girafes:
"Once upon a time there were giraffes, there were many giraffes.
Soon there won't be any more, it's Mr Man who kills them... "
"It is impossible for me to imagine the African savannah without their haughty silhouettes, Twiga is my heartfelt cry, my cry of love for these majestic and endearing African icons.
&
FRANCiS TEYNiER
Born in 1947 in Paris into a very cultural and artistic family, I have lived and worked most of my life in Copenhagen, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, as well as in New York, Stockholm, Žilina (Slovakia) and La Réunion.
As an urban planner, I was attracted to photography at an early age. It was during my stay in Reunion Island that I found particular inspiration in Chinese philosophy and in the work of the Chinese photographer Lang Jingshan (1882 -1995), particularly in his landscapes in composite photography.
Since 2012, I have devoted myself to the series "Phenographies", suggesting realities that are perhaps unknown but where abstraction is only apparent.
The series has been presented in numerous exhibitions in France, Scandinavia and Central Europe.
I divide my time with my wife between Saintes in Charente-Maritime, and Bratislava (Slovakia).
PHENOGRAPHIES
Through the test of the elements, let us lose ourselves in phenomena which are only unknown or abstract because we have not seen them.
This series was born out of research into the five elements - wood, water, earth, metal and fire - whose graphic qualities have long fascinated me.
It is also based on Chinese thought, for which all phenomena in the universe result from an unstable cycle of creation and destruction between these five elements.
Photographic combinations of these five elements, the "Phenographs" thus reproduce phenomena to be discovered by each person, based on his or her experience or imagination.
The intentional absence of overly obvious references to scale invites visual journeys between the infinitely small and the infinitely large. It doesn't matter whether your vision matches mine or not - that's also why I didn't want to give titles to the pictures.
&
on the 1st floor of the gallery
"PORTE-PLUMES"
Nathalie Houdin
Pen holder
“Porte-plumes” is my hymn to birds, to their grace, their lightness, their intelligence and their fragility. In France, populations of birds living in agricultural areas have lost a third of their numbers over the past twenty years. 420 million birds have disappeared in less than thirty years in Europe. Globally, one in eight species is threatened. Pesticides, climate change, hunting ... the consequences of human activities on the environment are one of the main reasons for their decline.
I wanted to pay tribute to the essential presence of these magnificent winged creatures with clean, creative and graphic photographs. The choice of black and white reinforced this desire to go to the essentials, and to sublimate these birds dear to my heart in their environment or their intimacy.
Nathalie Houdin
Photography is for me a passion and a commitment to nature. A need to get away from modern life to come back to more essential and real things. A desire to share, through my images, this beauty that we find all around us. In order to bear witness to its strengths and weaknesses, and to draw attention to the urgent need to safeguard our roots and our heritage.
My work is also based on the production of conservation reports focused on the relationship between Man and nature which is so dear to my heart. “It is a sad thing to think that Nature speaks and that mankind does not listen to her. »Victor Hugo. Being one of his spokespersons is one of my greatest motivations.
