The latest series by the duo Metz+Racine, taken for the magazine Casa de Abitare, takes its inspiration from the 1920s paintings of Giorgio di Chirico. Their work is best described as “metaphysical”, as in their still lifes, which resonate with thoughts and feelings provoked by the “chance encounters”. Their compositions are not founded on what their subjects are, nor what they mean, what they’re used for, and how we can derive pleasure from them, but on the eccentricity of their shapes, colors, lights and material, and on the energy unleashed by their liberated approach to objects.
Babara Metz and Eve Racine met at the London College of Communication, where both did a BA in Photography. After graduation Barbara set up her own practice and Eve continued with a Masters degree in Photography at the Royal College of Art.
Barbara Metz and Eve Racine founded their eponymous photographic studio in 2000, and continue to enjoy a uniquely rewarding collaborative relationship.
Since forming Metz+Racine, they have gained a reputation for their “not so still” still lifes. Barbara and Eve’s photographs bring together their love of colour, art, storytelling, food and fashion. Their pictures are at once fantastical and classical, and bring a welcome sense of puckishness to the sometimes stark and masculine world of still-life photography. In a Metz+Racine photograph, inanimate objects are brought gloriously to life.
Based in London, Metz+Racine are represented by M.A.P. agency (Management and Production) in Londres, New York and Sydney, and by Carole Lambert in Paris.
Metz+Racine’s work was published in Vogue, ID, Wallpaper, Dazed & Confused…, and their recent clients include Barclays, Louis Vuitton, Swarowski, Hermès, Visa, Nokia, John Lewis…
Séverine Morel
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