BETWEEN WATCHERS, photo series, 2006.
In this series of photos, the voyeur is still absent from the image. However, his presence is always somewhat palpable: we, spectators, are in the position of voyeur. It is as much a provocation by amusement to observe the voyeurs that we are all.
BETWEEN WATCHERS , photo triptych, 2006.
This triptych plays on ambiguity to talk about voyeurism. In a mirror game, both pleasant and disturbing, we observe the one who is observing us, through a gap. Pleasant, because these animals are beautiful. Disturbing, because they are prisoners (bars, log enclosures, burqa). The air of nothing, we are in the position of the complacent: the one who tolerates the unacceptable without realizing it or measuring the consequences.
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Title: The Ghost Elephant
Triptych : Between voyeurs
Year: 2006
Dimensions : 30 x 90 cm
Technique: triptych, photo 1 of 3.
Edition limited to 20 copies.
This photo shows an elephant in the style of a psychologically extinct being. This photo speaks of the duplicity of our ordinary voyeurism, and its cost. Here, an elephant is shown through the bars that separate it from the viewer. This presentation is warm and beautiful as the animal seems psychically extinct and it seems to start to fade away, as if it is going to visually disappear. I took this photo during a visit to a zoo. The elephant was swinging in a strange movement which reminded me deeply of the purely mechanical gestures of a psychologically extinct woman following the traumatic shock of her daughter's suicide.
Title: Chat burqa.
Triptych : Between whatchers
Year: 2006
Dimensions : 30 x 90 cm
Technique: triptych, photo 2 of 3.
Edition limited to 20 copies.
I photographed this cat so as to create an analogy with a woman wearing a burqa: the white down refers to the burqa; the cat's white and black dress is reminiscent of the kohl that women wear in the East. This photo reveals with humor and provocation that the burqa is an ambiguous object: like a voyeur observing through a slit, it allows one to see without being identified. Here, this fake burqa focuses attention on the gaze, transforming this gaze into an “instrument” for spying. The intense, sideways gaze suggests that this cat is observing something that interests him. We can easily imagine the emotions that animate him: between the pleasure of spying and apprehension of being caught spying.
Title: Sad eye
Triptych : Between whatchers
Year: 2006
Dimensions : 30 x 90 cm
Technique: triptych, photo 3 out of 3.
Edition limited to 20 copies.
Between two posts, a small space allows us to see a zebra. Large worm-eaten wooden posts serve as an enclosure for his living space. Boundary between the private and the public, this enclosure here resembles two "heavy" masses which focus the attention on the eye of this zebra. Our tendency to anthropomorphism makes us see sadness in this eye, sending us back afterwards at the cost of voyeurism: the pleasure of some (ours) makes others sad (the zebra but also possibly a human being because we could see a face made up).