Categories
News

Façonner la Lumière

Roseanne Lynch

November 7 – December 15 , 2024

in presence of the artist

6pm – 10pm

FAÇONNER LA LUMIÈRE

The word photography literally means “drawing with light”. It was coined in 1839 by one of the pioneers of the field, the scientist Sir John Herschel.The term is of course best understood in the context of black and white photography, where the image is formed and perceived through the interplay of light and shadow, along with the infinitely many intermediate shades of grey.

Roseanne Lynch pursues this literal interpretation of photography by studying the play of light on objects, either existing ones (a Bauhaus staircase, the Kandinskys’ bathtub) or, more frequently, abstract ones created from paper, sheet metal, or photographic film, by folding, bending, curling or deforming in some other way. She invites the viewer to contemplate light in its purest form, how it impinges on, is reflected by, and brings to life these essentially abstract forms, some of which seem to hover in space like mysterious unidentified flying objects. Her fascination with light brings to mind the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and his movie theatres or seascapes. They have in common a certain surrealistic element induced by the magical effect of light.

The approaches she favours, photograms, luminograms and solarisation, are classical techniques. Photograms date from the early days of photography, but were later employed in more abstract, experimental ways by surrealist artists such as László and Lucia Moholy-Nagy. Another artist known for his photograms was Man Ray who, together with Lee Miller, developed the technique of solarisation. Most of the works in the current exhibition are unique silver prints. Occasionally, her prints of geometric forms are enhanced using graphite.

ROSEANNE LYNCH

Born in Dublin, Roseanne Lynch lives and works in Cork, Ireland. She studied Photography at Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland, and obtained a Masters in Fine Art at Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork. Before her current post there as Lecturer in Fine Art, she was Lecturer at the Cork Centre for Architectural Education. Her passion for architecture informs her photographic work, for instance in her research on the geometric forms Frank Lloyd Wright used in his design for a Pavilion in Banff, Canada.

She has held a number of residencies, including at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Alberta, Canada, the Bauhaus Foundation, Dessau, Germany, the Camargo Foundation International Fellowship Programme, Cassis, France, the Cork Centre for Architectural Education, and the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris. In 2023, following her residency at The Bauhaus Foundation, and in response to the teachings of the Vorkus (preliminary course) at the Bauhaus school, she produced a book of her work, entitled Grammar, with a text by Bauhaus curator Torsten Blume.

Recent solo exhibitions include No Want of Evidence, Photo Museum Ireland, curated by Pádraig Spillane (2023), Semblance, Lavit Gallery, Cork (2022), GRAMMAR, Techne Sphere, Leipzig (2021), Forgetting’s Trace, Irish Embassy, Berlin (2020), and La trace de l’oubli, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2019).

Her work is held in several institutions, among them the National Collection of Ireland, the Arts Council of Ireland Collection, the Bauhaus Foundation, Dessau, the UCC Art Collection, the Glucksman Gallery, Cork, and the Office of Public Works State Art Collection, as well as in significant national and international private collections.

Toutes les photographies © Roseanne Lynch

Categories
News

MĪRĀRĪ

Andrei Fărcăşanu

September 19 – October 27, 2024

in presence of the artist

6pm – 10pm

MĪRĀRĪ

The title of the exhibition, Mīrārī, is the Latin word for  “to wonder at”, “to marvel at”, “to gaze at”. Andrei Fărcășanu’s small-format photographs can be imagined as fleeting instants from dreams or traces of distant memories, evoking the emotions experienced at the time. The themes are universal, the natural world being prominent, and so these images have the propensity to likewise trigger emotions in the viewer, emotions emanating from their own memories and experiences. 
The special photo-developing technique of darkroom lith printing enhances the dreamlike, emotional impact of the images, imparting to them a brownish, reddish or pinkish tone.
The exhibition Mīrārī includes selections from several of the artist’s series spanning various periods and features, for the first time, his latest series (2024). There are diptychs and triptychs as well as single photographs.

ANDREI FĂRCĂŞANU

Andrei Fărcășanu is a Romanian photographer based in Barcelona, Spain. He works with black and white analog photography and alternative darkroom techniques – handmade small-format prints. His work is focussed on intimate pictorial photography, used as a way to investigate the subtle details of everyday life.
Through this minimalist photography, the reduced size of the works, and the fact that the artist transforms the photos into unique and singular objects, the viewer – in order to understand the message – needs to approach them closely and study their details, and in so doing slow down the rhythm of modern life.
A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts at the National University of Arts in Bucharest, majoring in Painting (2003),  Andrei Fărcășanu holds a Masters degree in Photography and Live arts (2005) and a PhD in Photography with a thesis on Social Photography (2013).
In recent years, he has won various photography awards and prizes: 2023 Honorable Mention Winner – Tokyo International Photography Awards, 2022 Finalist InCadaques Photography Festival, 2020 Winner OpenWalls British Journal of Photography Award, 2020 Finalist Vila Casas Photography Prize, 2016 Winner Barcelona International Photography Awards, 2015 Winner Joan Cabanas Alibau Photography Prize.
Since 1999 he has participated in exhibitions in France, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Greece.
His work is collected by institutions and private collectors world-wide.

I use photography to explore everyday life, capturing moods and states of mind. This helps me understand myself and the world, expressing my interpretation through intimate, evocative photographs. I focus on the overlooked beauty and uncommon aspects of the common, creating small yet meaningful images.
My subjects reflect my passion for beauty and emotional connections, often drawing analogies with nature. I aim to create poetic, serene photographs, inviting viewers to interpret them personally. Each photo is like a key to a Pandora’s box, allowing diverse interpretations.
My work delves into the passage of time, memory, and the stillness of life. I find inspiration in situations that bring me closer to myself, capturing the fluidity and sensitivity of life’s poetry. Even seemingly trivial places and objects hold moments of awareness and perception for me.
Through minimalist, small-format photographs using analog techniques, I encourage viewers to study details and to slow down. The aesthetic focuses on the essence of beauty, with black and white, airy, relaxed works featuring infinite tones of grey. Craftsmanship is crucial, transforming images into physically imbued photographs.

Andrei Fărcășanu

All photographs © Andrei Fărcășanu

Categories
News

États d’Âme

Colette Pourroy

November 4 – December 10, 2023

Opening : Saturday November 4

6pm – 9pm

Colette Pourroy has made a name for herself by exploring her family in several episodes and in several books. At Mind’s Eye, we have presented three of her exhibitions on this theme.

Here, she turns to the soul and its relationship to our body. Movement and blurring are the means she has chosen to express them in this new series, État d’âme. She has already used these techniques in her previous work, notably in the series on her sister Ève, but here she pushes them further.

The images, reminiscent of certain photographs by Francesca Woodman or Duane Michals, leave ample room for the viewer’s sensibility and imagination.

SOUL-STATES

After all the deaths, all the cherished ones whose stories I told in my family saga, a desire awakened in me to evoke the soul and its relationship with the body.  

Between the collective conscience and unconscious, the symbolism, all that speaks of the unseen, the infinite, the subtle, writing the unclear makes way for the imaginary.

This living, moving photography shatters the divine: the intervals, gaps, punctuation, the invisible.

It is like automatic writing; what comes forth is unexpected, beyond my will, mysterious, yet fervently sought.

Drawing with light, painting with chiaroscuro and without artifice, only the spiritual binds these glimmering threads together.  

Colette Pourroy (September 2023)
Translation: Paul H. Rogers (September 2023)

COLETTE POURROY

After studies at the Villa Arson in Nice and thirty years as a graphic designer for publishers in Paris, Colette Pourroy, who had been taking photographs since the age of 13, decided to exhibit her work in 2003, following the death of her mother.

Over the following ten years, she exhibited her photographs of trees in black and white (BnF collection with Anne Biroleau) and colour in private collections in France and abroad. These resulted in two series, “Peau d’arbres” and “Le Sexe des arbres”, both published by Vis-à-Vis international.

The artist would later realise that these photos of trees symbolised the roots of her family saga.

A workshop in 2008 with Michael Ackerman, decisive for her freedom of vision and spirit, gave her the impetus, the awareness of others and the place of the human on the path.

From 2013 to 2023, this family saga (which began with the figure of the father) was exhibited in galleries and published by André Frère éditions.
It comprises four series, plus one on the couple (selected and published by MEP in 2014).
An extract from each series is included in the public collections of the BnF and the MEP, thanks to Héloïse Conesa and Pascal Hoël. 

BOOK SIGNING

Colette Pourroy will be signing her books at Paris Photo on the stand of her publisher André Frère on Thursday 9 November at 3pm.

All photographs © Colette Pourroy