The Madé gallery, in Paris, exhibits polaroids of English fashion photographer Steve Hiett.
Steve Hiett, who is also known as “the director of color”, immortalized for many years women on glossy paper in pictorial settings with saturated light. In an exhibition currently on view, the gallery Madé chooses to exhibit more personal works that are a testimony to his working methods: he photographed each element of the scene that he imagined, with a Polaroid 180, before photographing the models.
An accidental fashion photographer, he always wanted to become a painter -, Steve Hiett is now among the best. It is perhaps his passion for painting and graphics that give his compositions this particular aesthetics. Steve Hiett tries to tell stories, poetic stories. In each of his photographs, we find in unusual settings glamourized female figures who appear as shadows, in contrast to the bright colors, saturated lights and angular shapes. The dazzling flashes support the instantaneous dimension of these photographs and freeze the beauty of these models. Accustomed to work on image saturation and off-center frames, Steve Hiett offers a photography without concession.
On the occasion of his prestigious collaborations and equipped with his Polaroid 180, he thus superimposed close-ups, to create powerful collages that account for the final result. A simple preparatory artfulness to begin with, these collages turn out to be works in their own right that offer a more authentic view of his work and leaves room for surprise and spontaneity. Steve Hiett said: “I am only a craftsman who gives life to glossy sketches. ”
Steve Hiett, Polaroids
September 14 to October 20, 2017
Galerie Madé
30 Rue Mazarine
75006 Paris
France
