Last March, the jury of fotoprize 2015 met to choose the work of Juliette-Andréa Elie. The aim of the fotoprize is to help young artists, following their graduation from French art schools , to take their first steps into the art market. The winning series Fading Landscapes is currently being shown at the Carousel du Louvre as part of the fotofever show. Here is a meeting with the young winner.
L’Oeil de la Photographie : You are the winner of fotoprize 2015 with your series Fading Landscapes, can you tell us about the origins of this work? And the way in which it took shape.
Juliette-Andréa ELIE : I had just finished a series in ink called “On the way to appearance” that questions the way in which shapes appear. I use photography with the same intention: how to capture shapes which are not fixed, but in the process of appearing and disappearing. My reflection on landscape relies on this mystery. To try and reproduce the passing moment in the photographic image, because a place doesn’t show itself in just one moment .So I started to work with layers, that is to say by choosing a translucent paper, by superimposing several photographs, and by sculpting the paper in places to reveal yet another image. This long process allows the construction of a new space, a world of possibilities.
ODLP : Your images are at the crossroads of several mediums, created by the play of photographic superimpositions and embossed designs, this series goes beyond simple photography. How did you arrive at this idea of mixing different mediums and to what end ?
JAE : I had already worked with superimpositions of tracings, where drawn fragments came out of pictures taken on a smart phone (“The Cloud” installation at the Villa Cameline, Nice, 2013). This is a matter that has meaning in my process, because it changes, like the image of a recurring natural element in my work, in different physical forms: water. I especially pursue fog because it’s in fog that you can observe the birth of shapes. By printing on this cottony paper I can re-create the foggy atmosphere that I photograph. By embossing, by scraping, the paper becomes opaque, but if I print an overexposed image, it fades to reveal the image, the mirror or the reflective paper that is behind it. The “Fading Landscapes” are unsettling, disturbing our perception as if we have become a little myopic. I feel very close to the formula of François Julien, “The eyes are less agents that interpreters: vectors or smugglers through which we can get into the landscape.”
This behavior also implies different temporalities. The moment when the view was taken is relatively short, whereas that of the embossing with the dry-point is much longer and more painstaking. This length of time and the oneness of the prints is for me an important part – at a time of immediacy and overconsumption of images.
ODLP : Picto, the laboratory that is a partner of the fair, made the prints for the exhibition, How did the production of these prints, which are so different, go? What do you think of the result ?
JAE : The role of the printer is a very important part of my work. As much as for a silver print, for example. With Christophe Batifoulier, the printer at Picto, we worked to create an “alchemy” which was individual and different for each print. We had to try different printing techniques, particularly with charcoal, a fossil pigment on a very expensive Japanese paper. My prints were objects, the work of “Encadrement Flamant” a long-time collaborator of Picto, was essential in finding the best way to show them. That was the start of a long collaboration with Bati (Christophe Batifoulier) and Elisabeth Hering of Service Expo, who are already partners of famous artists I admire.
ODLP : For the fotofever fair you’re showing the prize-winning series and Carte Blanche, can you tell us about this new work which you will also show at the Baudoin Lebon gallery at the start of 2016 ?
JAE : That which I call “Fading Landscapes” is a process of creation more than a series. For this Carte Blanche, I continue to explore the notion of landscape, away from the western definition. The views are almost in geological layers, that create a temporal depth in the photograph, what is finally represented is not what you see in nature, but the connection between the things that you see, those that you have seen and those that you can see.
The techniques broaden, and the embossing sometimes moves on to new superimpositions, particularly with reflective surfaces. My interest in science reveals a little more. In “The chaos of precision”, I went back to a drawing from Descartes’ notebooks where he questions the reflection of light on the formation of the image on our retina. The explanation appears in relief, in the sea, seen from a boat. A mirror, fixed behind the tracing, sends back an exceptional light, barely noticeable, like when you look through a window or a porthole, the perception is slightly affected. Science and art can explore, with different methods, the same mysteries of natural phenomena.
Finally in “The high see shadow” I embossed the stars of the sky in 2100, seen from an Icelandic glacier of which the melting of which is worrying. The tail of a diaphanous fish goes behind a photograph of mounds of ice and volcanic ash, transforming them into submarine mountains. According to the scientific forecasts, the oceans will have increased by a metre by that date. By showing the great spaces where human beings are hardly present, it is also our connection with the environment that I question. They are not living spaces but territories that you pass though, places which give us the feeling of original and future time. The hidden sanctuaries*.
* expression used by Sténon, forerunner of geology
FAIR
Fotofever
Winner of fotoprize 2015, Juliette Andréa Elie
Prints are producteur by Picto lab.
From 13 to 15 novembre 2015
Carrousel du Louvre
99 Rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris
France
http://www.fotofeverartfair.com
http://julietteandreaelie.com
