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Jean-François Spricigo: “No image obsesses me except that of my fears”

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It’s an invitation to the inner journeys of Belgian photographer Jean-François Spricigo that A.galerie offers in Brussels: a dialogue with animals, confrontation to the elements, vibrant encounters, in black, white and colour. The photographer answered the Eye of Photography’s questions.

Many of your photos call to mind solitude, silence. Are you a solitary person?

What other bounty can be given to a relationship than the peace of our solitude? That which finally stops claiming its lack of something. Its complete presence is wonderful. In that, animals are my unfailing inspiration. Their determination to live whatever the danger of their situation, and their disturbing peacefulness at the moment of death, all this gives me the serenity of an individual approach, a holistic faith free from any kind of dogma, religion or ideological affiliation.

Hiko, a dog friend, saved my Life and me realise that my life doesn’t belong to me – we don’t “own” our lives – and nonetheless need to respect it. With tenderness and simplicity he revealed to me that the essence of my journey doesn’t depend on my existence in itself but on the availability of the Life that runs through it.

He died on the evening of my opening, like a necessary handover, a maturing that I now had to acquire alone as no-one here can claim eternity, but we can give everyone the intensity and sincerity of the moment.

What makes you happy? And sad?

At the risk of being overly romantic, tell me what can dethrone love to bring happiness? Of course, I mean real love, not that which compensates for something else or still wants to be heroic. A love without a hostage, a love that doesn’t exclude but is unconditionally inclusive. A love that is free (rhetorical…), joyful.

As for sadness – for which I was and still am very much a candidate – it is essentially my lack of perspective. For example, every time I decide that the world isn’t fair because the sky should be green and the grass blue.

Confusion favours the emotional, however the “other” – whatever its form – embodies above all a wonderful revelation and a privilege of getting to know each other better.

Do your photographs show reality?

There is this hazy blurring, a vibrancy that necessarily calls for some imagination. Is it to show the reality of an emotion, furtively or not? I do what I can to prolong not what I see, but what I experience. So, it’s the first sieve. I offer you my experience of the real, but fortunately the real does not allow itself to be constrained, it does not tolerate the past. An echo remains, the footprint of a mythical animal in a forest of dreams.

Even though they can’t be compared, can a photo express as much as music, or words? 

For me the music of words – when they dare to be in poetry – or a melody, immediately disconnects my mind. Explanatory words or a photo that claims to document something affect me less, even if it expresses something, of course.

Does a photo have to have a title, or a word to accompany it?

No it’s a kind of coquetry to add one to it, the umpteenth way to try to force the meaning, it’s not necessary. Even if I start to do it if I want to pass myself off as a smart guy.

Would there be something therapeutic in your photographic work?

I hope I don’t kidnap the gaze of those who do me the privilege of looking into what I do. The psychological dimension, so dear to our society at all costs, often seems to me to be vain and to dwell on sordid reality.

So, I don’t say therapeutic, I prefer to think of it simply as an impetus.

What is beauty, for you

Trust.

What drives you?

Life.

 

Interview by Cilou de Bruyn
Cilou de Bruyn is an author an dphotographic consultant. She lives and works in Brussels in Belgium.

 

 

Jean-François Spricigo, Voyage d’hiver
Until 20th February 2018
A.galerie
Rue du Page, 25
1050 Bruxelles
Belgique

Book:
Toujours l’aurore
Published by Éditions de L’œil

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