Published by Éditions Bessard, “The Sound of Silence” by photographer Camille Brasselet depicts women’s bodies in carefully composed and delicately mysterious scenes.
“A particular fullness and a silent and strange sweetness.” These words, written in English in Camille Brasselet’s introduction on the first page of her book, perfectly convey the impression that emerges from “The Sound of Silence.” Throughout the pages, the book delicately presents still bodies in meticulously crafted settings with colors and compositions.
Part of the Bespoke collection by Éditions Bessard, the book is a carefully crafted art object, with the cover setting the tone. Horizontal lines of a bathtub, ceramic tiles, or a towel concealing the upper body of a nude woman create parallels with shades of orange-beige, contrasting with the blue canvas surrounding the book.
Within and beyond the frame
After a few introductory words that evoke “a constant exploration of the impact of the body in the environment,” a “sense of suspended moments,” or a “disturbing strangeness,” the theme about absence is immediately evident. A back-facing body with short, speckled hair welcomes us, positioned in front of a closed door, an unknown hand resting on the shoulder. Turning the page reveals a first face, intentionally looking outside the frame, seated at a cafe table next to its counterpart, seen from behind. Blue tones respond to the image facing it, dominated by a pale green wall and the yellow that illuminates the background mirror where a woman sitting on a bed lets a strand of her hair run down her back.
“I am a maniac about framing, folds, stray hairs, and light,” confessed the photographer in March 2022 to Arkuchi magazine. Throughout these twenty-three images featuring pastel and timeless warm color palettes, one can feel the technical and pictorial mastery of the 26-year-old photographer. Nothing is left to chance: from the choice of costumes to models, accessories, and settings, all captured in natural light with minimal post-production retouching. “Everything that enters my frame is carefully considered,” she summarizes.
Photography, painting, and ceramics
A finalist for the HSBC Photography Prize in 2021, winner of the Fotofever Prize in 2020, and the le19M Prize for photography in the field of artistic professions as part of the Picto Fashion Photography Prize 2022, Camille Brasselet explains that she composes her images “like a painting, with blocks of color. Before placing my character in the story. I seek natural, very flat lighting, with minimal contrast and shadows.”
The influence of Erwin Olaf is recognizable, but even more so the disembodied canvases of Clark and Pougnaud. Attentive to various modes of expression, including painting, sculpture, and engraving, which she experimented with during her studies at the Fine Arts school of Saint-Brieuc, she also seems to evoke the colors and textures of Domenico Gnoli throughout the pages of “The Sound of Silence.” Camille Brasselet plays with motifs: the ceramic of a pool, the tiles of a bathroom, the plastic steps of a staircase, or the lockers of a locker room within intimate or public settings, emptied of their crowds.
Familiar places and strange scenes
“I love cinema and the sets of Wes Anderson, Lynch, Almodovar,” explains the photographer who composes unsettling scenes where the character in the scene hides their thoughts from us, and their face is either partially or completely obscured. The bodies staged are components of the setting, responding to it, blending in, or marking a rupture with it, appearing as rounded forms that break the gentle rigidity of the places. This results in a particular geometry where women’s bodies, fabrics, colors mix, and the question of off-screen is omnipresent.
The gazes, lights, decenterings, and mirrors encourage us to look further. “It is fundamentally everything that escapes us, the gap that we cannot define and that surpasses our understanding that attracts my curiosity,” she summarizes on her website. A curiosity that gives rise to delicately mysterious compositions in familiar places, timeless scenes made of a “form of silent and strange softness.” A sensation shared before closing the book, which concludes with a final page allowing one to detach a signed print, delicate, as if to leave a trace, a “silent imprint” for us as well.
Camille Brasselet’s work is available on the Artistics platform and online gallery.
Camille Brasselet – The Sound Of Silence
Published in 2021 by Editions Bessard, Paris
Bespoke Collection No.18
Limited edition of 250 copies
Each copy is numbered and accompanied by a signed print
Typography and Design: Thibault Geffroy
