A virtuoso photographer of the print, the alchemist
Born in 1936, Jean-Pierre Evrard spent part of his childhood in Morocco and began photography at the age of eighteen.
His photographic writing is characterized by a humanist look, a work on the material and symbols and the quality of print that give his world a timeless poetry.
All of his work to date represents more than 50,000 negatives, half of them in African countries.
His photographic career began 50 years ago, spurring him to use black and white film process exclusively. Becoming a master in the discipline, he is also a specialist in paper (old paper, recycled paper) and composes his own developing bath and his chemistry. In charge of all the stages, from the shooting to the creation of the work, his images are sculpted by a craftsman’s virtuosity in the dark room.
Sculpting the light
The exhibition brings together a series of analogue photographs in which the importance of the matter in Jean-Pierre Evrard’s work is found.
The gallery presents in its different spaces works combining technicality and poetry, precision and lyricism.
In the first piece, part of the Oxymore series, with prints treated in oxidation. This recent work, done in 2017-2018, is a play by the artist that adds color in black and white, respecting the classicism of the film.
A second part is dedicated to nudes related to pictorialism.
Finally, a third part proposes a series of analogue photographs, which tells of the wandering of Jean-Pierre Evrard, through various parts of the world. His sources of inspiration are echoed by his childhood spent abroad.
The director of the gallery, Fiona Sanjabi, offers with this exhibition Sculpting the light an opportunity to return to the polymorphous work of the photographer, both intimate and exhaustive.
A life dedicated to photography
After studying visual arts and graphic arts, he began his career at Kodak. He animated trainings for professional photographers in France and Africa.
From 1980, he began his own work, which became his main activity in the early 1990s, doing reportages about the people and their environment in many countries in Europe, the United States and Asia .
He favors the countries of Africa and more particularly Morocco where he goes regularly.
Jean-Pierre Évrard was a member of the Métis agency, a member of the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1985 and vice-president of the Gens d’images association, for whom he led for 14 years the workshops at the Maison Européenne de la photographie de Paris.
It is to the great humanistic photographers travelers Jean-Pierre Evrard most often refers, especially his great friend and master Edouard Boubat.
He puts his knowledge and experience as a technician at the service of a work in which he shows his interest for the human being and for the matter that can be exalted in the laboratory.
“To travel abroad is to meet other cultures, other human beings that seem different but are we discover so similar to us. To photograph is to freeze these encounters, these emotions and in a second time to put in images the traces of an ephemeral instant. To expose is to share, to tell pieces of one’s life and to meet other passionate people, other lovers. The feeling of giving a little and receiving a lot. “- Jean-Pierre Evrard
For the transmission of his know-how during all his years, Jean-Pierre Evrard was named Knight of Arts and Letters.
Jean-Pierre Evrard – Sculpting the Light
From February 15 to March 23, 2019
Agathe Gaillard Gallery
3 rue du Pont Louis Philippe
75004 Paris
