On the occasion of the music festival Les MILLESIMES de Tonnerre in Yonne, whose artistic director is Lambert Wilson from June 25 to July 2, 2023, the Galerie LE L’OEIL on the esplanade of the Chateau de Tanlay near Tonnerre presents SOME DAYS ARE SILENT, Chris Plytas‘ work with an eponymous book from the new publishing house Materia Nebulae.
The exhibition and the book are the amazing culmination of a chain of curiosity, friendships and above all a passion for ink, paper and photography.
Chris Plytas grew up in London where he studied fine arts, painting and sculpture. It was only after his studies that he chose photography as his working medium.
Drawing on his Greek origins, Chris’ signature introspective work explores his relentless pursuit of fundamental beauty.
“I’m not trying to capture the decisive moment but rather the eternal moment,” he says.
It was in preparation for a six-month trip to Australia that he switched to medium format and began to establish what would become his signature style. The resulting portfolio was exhibited across Europe with FNAC Galleries for a period of six years and was also shown at the Photographers Gallery in London. In Paris, he exhibited during the Mois de la Photo, where his series on the Misery and Splendor of the Body aroused much interest.
SOME DAYS ARE SILENT. The silence of sculpture, that of an eternity. In the photographs of Chris Plytas there are Gradivas, walking or immobile, looking at infinite and Mediterranean landscapes. Sunlight sculpts bodies and photos immortalize them. Standing beauty. He photographs the sculptures and makes them human, he photographs the bodies, male and female, and makes sculptures of them. Time stopped. The world immobilized. Beauty made eternal.
Classicism and naturalism merge harmoniously.
The timeless and the contemporary reflect Chris’ compositional philosophy whether capturing the aesthetics of portraits, the human body, statuary or landscape.
“Nothing seems to tie the snapshots together, except the skies of a summer, the Mediterranean, we never seem to imagine that another eye than ours could have seen what we see. These photos are like memories.” Alexandre Misericordia creator and publisher MNE Materia Nebulae Edition.
I thought of an exhibition but without a book it seemed utopian, so a friend convinced me to do the book. Ilaria whose editing skills were established told me OK do the book. From there germinated the desire not to leave this project an only child. For the moment we have no other ambitions than to find pleasure in the artistic direction and the production of books and that the profits of each project only serve to finance the next one.
Exhibition
Chris Plytas: Some Days Are Silent
from June 25 to July 2, 2023
Galerie LE L’OEIL
4 Gd Rue Basse, 89430 Tanlay, France
https://www.leloeil.com/
Book
Chris Plytas: Some Days Are Silent
materia.nebulae
Price: limited edition of 200 copies [ 25x25cm ]: €55 including 30 special editions with photographic print [ 20x20cm ]: €130.
Printed in Paris.
For more information or to pre-order the book: [email protected]
