27/5/2009
Helene de Roux
Photo4, Paris
Perspectives
Across continents, wherever her paths take her to, Hélène de Roux photographs what she sees or discovers, as streaks of light play on: places of memory and contemplation like roads and tracks, lands where ancient millenary traditions have survived, but also urban breathtaking modern architecture, skies, seasides.
The feeling of absence never lasts. Powerful characters inhabit her images: aged women, farmers, craftsmen, so authentic, with their inner light, their expectative attitudes, their ritual gestures out of oblivion.
Elsewhere she intercepts, stopping their race, fugitive figures passing by, walking, driving cars and lorries or riding donkeys. From one photograph to the other, correspondences appear. Be it in her portraits or her landscapes, horizontal, vertical, oblique lines rise, vanish, bend, break down sometimes, erecting walls or opening perspectives. And on silver prints, matter stands out : dry sand and rocks of the desert, volutes of hammam steam, clouds of smoke unfurling and blown away, the airy lightness of a fabric, the smoothness of a polished stone, the glow of a fire.
Like roads furrowing space, her photographs catch time going by on faces, down wrinkles, along weather-beaten façades. They also show how, little by little, still an intruder in faraway countries, relentless modernity is taking over from ancient traditions Free-spirited and always curious, Hélène de Roux plays on a large palette of emotions, from gravity to poetry. Picturing tombstones, a hospital ward, a bleak corridor and then vivid snatches of street life, hectic urban movement, the quiet paths of a park in Paris, a shimmering and vibrating Berber market. Humour, soothing and invigorating, often transpires in the way, through people's eyes or smile, as she catches strange, surprising and unique instants of life.
A lucid vision of a contrasted changing world.
Publication PERSPECTIVES 80 pages, 40 illustrations ISBN 978-2-7466-0615-9
Image: Place de la Concorde, Paris, 2004, gelatin silver print, 30 x 40 cm, edition of 8
Opening reception: Thursday May 28th 6pm in the presence of the artist
Photo4
4 rue Bonaparte-Paris VI
Tues-Sat 2 - 7 pm