The uncanny strangeness of things
I have long been interested in still life.
Bringing objects together to photograph them (according to Charles Sterling’s definition of still life) creates a kind of mysterious alchemy between them. There is the pleasure of playing with composition. I have also sought to capture the uncanny quality of these objects that sometimes emerges. That very particular sensation where something familiar suddenly strikes us as strange – a sense of unease in the face of something we know very well.
I’m not particularly keen on the idea of seeking out the essence of these things. Photography is a medium that claims to record a certain truth. But we know it doesn’t quite succeed.
The idea of pushing a project to its limits, of returning to it systematically, appealed to me. For once, seeing a process through to the end with a touch of stubbornness.
Still life, always available, and studio work, without time constraints, seem to me well suited to this.
A few ghosts haunt this series: artists, painters or photographers, who have worked repeatedly, almost to the point of obsession, on the same subject, on a theme that is sometimes very narrow. Artists pursue their task throughout their lives as if out of necessity, as if to turn it into a quest.
I have chosen to make this my project, systematically, in the style of the Coué method.
I shall see where all this leads me.
