Emmanuel Monzon

ALL ABOUT PHOTO: Urban Sprawl, Emptiness by Emmanuel Monzon

Special Mention Solo Exhibition June 2021 - Curator Sandrine Hermand-Grisel

My photographic work is presented through a generic title entitled "URBAN SPRAWL, EMPTINESS". This title was imposed by the seriality and the repetition of my subjects of predilections: the deserts of the American West and their poetic and chaotic processions of motorway interchanges, cities without centers, residential zones without inhabitants.

This new series, delayed several times because of the harshness of the pandemic, carries as a subheading "I don't want to go where I'm going, I just want to live where I am".

This project revolves essentially around Salton Sea, but more specifically in the surrounding areas of Bombay Beach and Salvation Mountains. These are areas that resonate strongly within me and in my photographic work. Only a country like the United States can offer these frozen landscapes between a chaotic present, and a glorious past. Now left abandoned. A new population took possession of the places imposing a new vision in a mix of poetry, misery, and of stubborn and determined survival. I recently noticed there is a coincidental resonance between this series and the film Nomadland, which recently came out: where characters, who for the most part are marginalized, and for some by choice, have decided to leave outside of the world. This world we can potentially summarize by "You have arrived and at the same time you have never left".

EMMANUEL MONZON
Emmanuel Monzon is a photographer and visual artist based in Seattle, WA. He graduated from the Academy of Beaux-Arts in Paris, France with honors. His work has been featured throughout the US, Europe and Asia (through exhibitions, selections and various awards). Through his work, he explores and questions the signs of urban sprawl in our visual field. His photographic process is being influenced by his background as a plastic artist.

Through my urban sprawl series, I want to photograph the in-between state found in the American landscape. So I capture places of transition, borders, passages from one world to another: am I leaving a city or entering a new environment? In my artwork there is no judgment, no denunciation, only the picture itself. If I could sum up the common theme of my photos, it would be about emptiness, about silence. My pictures try to extract from the mundane urban landscape a form of estheticism. Where most people only pass through, I stop and look for some form of poetic beauty. I like repetition, I like series, and I like driving around.

Publications
Selection: Lensculture, Feature shoot, Rolling Stone.it (Black Camera), AINT-BAD, AESTHETICA Magazine, C.41 Magazine, F-stop, All About Photo, L'Oeil de la Photographie, Fisheye, Phroom, THE FACE Magazine, Us of America, Float Photo, Pellicola, Dodho, Vogue, EYESHOT Magazine, ARTDOC Photography magazine, Photovogue, FUTURE NOW, GUP, Artslant, Creative Boom, Keen on, Lamono, LENTA.RU (Russia) Bokeh Bokeh, Be-Art, South China Morning Post, Wobneb, Musee Magazine New York, Pool Resources, Subjectively Objective, Life Style Asia, La Stampa, MSN.com (Russia)...

Representation:
Robert Kananaj Gallery
Gallery CHARBON, Hong Kong
COLLECTION: ESSEL COLLECTION- Karlheinz Essl, founder of the ESSL Museum.

Images: sizes 30''x30'' Print: Canson Arches Infinity Watercolor Paper (acid free)

Emmanuel Monzon's Website
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All About Emmanuel Monzon
Exclusive Interview with Emmanuel Monzon

All About Photo is a free and independent magazine that has become one of the most vibrant portals of photography on the web.

Urban Sprawl, Emptiness ; arriver à destination

La série Urban Sprawl, Emptiness (que l’on peut traduire par « Étalement urbain, vacuité ») a souffert des complications dues au Covid et au confinement, ce qui a amené Emmanuel Monzon à la sous-titrer « Je ne veux pas aller là où je vais, je veux juste vivre là où je suis » . Les photos témoignent de l’état d’un pays qui se trouve entre son passé glorieux et son présent chaotique et incertain. Les paysages figés de régions à l’abandon sont saisis et offrent en retour des visions poétiques d’une population nouvelle bien décidée à survivre.

J’ai récemment remarqué qu’il y avait une résonance entre cette série et le film Nomadland, qui est sorti récemment : où des personnages, qui sont pour la plupart marginalisés, et pour certains par choix, ont décidé de partir en dehors du monde. Un monde que l’on pourrait résumer par « Vous êtes arrivés et en même temps vous n’êtes jamais partis ».— Emmanuel Monzon

L'œil d'un peintre

Artiste plastique de formation, Emmanuel Monzon applique à sa photographie des codes propres à la peinture. Le sujet de ses photos, qui parlent et questionnent la transition du milieu urbain au milieu naturel, rejoint une méthodologie artistique unissant la peinture à la photographie.

Dans Urban Sprawl, Emptiness, le cadrage de ses photos est volontairement carré pour concentrer l’intérêt du spectateur sur le sujet, le mettant ainsi bien en évidence dans les compositions. La palette de couleur n’est jamais éclatante mais jamais terne non plus. Sous une lumière diffuse, elles s’harmonisent en des tons qui complimentent les clichés et aident à souligner un vide déjà explicité par le manque de sujets humains. Dans ces paysages naturels, ce ne sont que les éléments d’architecture urbaine qui se dessinent.

Le vide et la beauté

« Un homme est en effet une ville, et pour le poète il n’y a d’idées que dans les choses. »

— William Carlos Williams, Paterson

À travers Urban Sprawl Emptiness, Emmanuel Monzon explore le vide et trouve de la beauté dans celui-ci. Ces représentations désolées de paysages à la fois familiers et étrangers ne sont que des photographies mais laissent à entendre un silence assourdissant. Sans jugement ni dénonciation, le photographe extrait du mondain une forme esthétique ; exposant une réelle beauté, cachée là où la plupart d’entre nous n’accorderait qu’un regard furtif.

By Josse Lawniczak . Graine de photographe Magazine

BY PIXFAN PHOTOGRAPHIE MAGAZINE.

Les salines de Bonneville sont une étendue de sel située sur le bord ouest du Grand Lac Salé. Elles sont réputées pour être les plus vastes d’une série de salines et ont été formées à la fin de la dernière période glaciaire, lorsque le lac Bonneville du Pléistocène a commencé à se retirer.En 1907, quelques entrepreneurs locaux ont effectué des essais en conduisant une voiture Pierce-Arrow sur les salines, et en 1910, le premier chemin de fer permanent a été construit sur les salines de Bonneville. Depuis lors, les salines de Bonneville sont considérées comme l’un des circuits de vitesse terrestre les plus prestigieux au monde.Chaque année, cinq grands événements de course de vitesse terrestre y sont organisés, dont le légendaire Speed Week.Le premier record de vitesse terrestre a été établi lors des courses à Bonneville en 1914, et les événements de course actuels des salines de Bonneville attirent des voitures, des camions et des motos qui tentent d’établir la vitesse la plus élevée atteinte par une personne utilisant un véhicule sur Terre.

C’est ici dans ce coin reculé de l’Utah que le photographe Emmanuel Monzon a décidé de situer sa série “URBAN SPRAWL – Emptiness“.

Autour de Wendover et des salines de Bonneville en Utah.“À travers ma série sur l’étalement urbain, je me pose la question : est-ce que je quitte une ville ou est-ce que j’entre dans un nouvel environnement ?J’aime jouer et mélanger deux approches : les codes des nouvelles topographies et le concept de “l’entre-deux états” inspiré par l’anthropologue Marc Augé sous le nom de “non-lieux”.

J’apprécie les endroits de transition, comme les intersections ou les passages d’un monde à un autre, par exemple, d’une zone résidentielle à une zone industrielle.
L’étalement urbainJ’aime aussi les lieux touristiques altérés par la trace humaine. On retrouve souvent ce sentiment de vide, de paradoxe visuel en voyageant à travers les États-Unis. La transition d’un site à l’autre : vous êtes arrivé et en même temps, vous n’êtes jamais parti. Je pense que l’expansion du paysage urbain ou industriel dans le paysage naturel américain a redéfini cet espace et est devenu lui-même un “non-lieu”.

Dans mon travail artistique, aucun jugement n’existe, pas de dénonciation, seulement l’image elle-même. Si je devais résumer le thème commun de mes photos, ce serait le vide, le silence.Mes photos essaient d’extraire de l’ordinaire du paysage urbain une forme d’esthétisme. Là où la plupart des personnes passent simplement, je m’arrête et cherche une forme de beauté poétique. J’aime la répétition, j’apprécie les séries et j’adore conduire autour.”

Étalement urbain (urban sprawl) est l’augmentation de la superficie d’une ville, et la diminution de sa densité de population. Il est l’une des manifestations spatiales de la périurbanisation. Je ne veux pas aller là où je vais, je veux juste quitter l’endroit où je suis.

URBAN SPRAWL – Emptiness par Emmanuel MonzonEmmanuel Monzon est un photographe et artiste visuel basé à Seattle, WA. Il est diplômé de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris, France, avec mention. Son travail a été présenté dans toute l’Amérique du Nord, l’Europe et l’Asie (à travers des expositions, des sélections et divers prix).À travers son travail, il explore et questionne les signes de l’étalement urbain dans notre champ visuel. Son processus photographique est influencé par son expérience en tant qu’artiste plasticien.

PUBLICATION: Emmanuel Monzon at Robert Kananaj Gallery

By: Emese Krunák-Hajagos

Solitude surrounds the guest when entering Emmanuel Monzon’s exhibition at Robert Kananaj Gallery. All the photographs seem similar at first glance in their quiet compositions and monochrome colours. Taking a closer look, one recognizes their nuances – and becomes mesmerised by their magical beauty. They radiate an ephemeral, almost surreal tension that captivates the viewer. 

Monzon, a French born artist graduated from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and started his career with painting, and his painterly values still dominate his photographs. They look like watercolours and are printed on watercolour paper. Moving to Seattle was a turning point in his life. As he said, “I had the feeling that my work could only be photographic for this space, which creates its own mythology.” Indeed, it did, as Monzon’s photographs are very unique in their themes, depictions and colouring. 

Monzon travels a lot in the American West, around the deserts where urban settlements, surrounded by suburbs, meet industrial areas and a no-man’s lands of rocks and sand. All his images are entirely devoid of humans. Some suggest human occupation such as Urban Sprawl 167, with a parked trailer, parking spots, a strong outline of a building. The grey surface of asphalt ends abruptly at a rock and the landscape takes over. The pervasive colour is burnt sand – the whole area is covered with it, even the building seems to be made from bricks carved from the rock. There are traces of people, the neon sign at Jazzercise is on, there is a light inside the shop and in the building in the background, cars are in the parking lot – but not a single person or animal is around (Urban Sprawl 165). The only living thing is the large cactus, standing in front of a traffic light. The light has turned green – but for whom. Who had to stop and why at the stop sign (Urban Sprawl 164) and walk over the pedestrian crossing? As far as the eye can see there is nothing in that flat landscape that surrounds a sand rock – except emptiness. One can almost hear the moan of the soil cracked by heat, beaten and barren, or the silent cry of a lonely tree fenced out of the garden behind it (Urban Sprawl 185).

Where are these places? Where are the people and animals? Even the shadows are not there. What’s happening? Did the people leave or is this a post-apocalyptic world? Maybe none of these. Rather I think it is a landscape with its “own mythology.” Monzon captures moments that can best be described as “in-between” moments, in which the activities of the town stopped for the day and haven’t started for a new one, where everyone sleeps or hides, where the place is left by itself.

Monzon’s landscapes are heavily modified, desecrated even destroyed by our hunger for expansion, making the land banal and ugly. Still we can’t deny the beauty in these photographs, but such a cruel beauty it is. As Monson stated in his latest interview, “the American natural landscape has redefined this space and has become itself a ‘non-place’. The transition from one site to the next: You have arrived and at the same time you have never left.” Whatever this place is, it is not the place you want to be. French anthropologist Marc Augè defined “non-place” as a place of anonymous solitude, like airports, motorways, parking lots where people meet in an illusion that they can be socially engaged, but actually it is not possible. Monzon photographs depict these “non-places” in their true nature: as timeless places where there are no sounds, only emptiness.

However beautifully depicted, this emptiness is sad, even painful. Urban Sprawl 162 portrays a dinosaur figure that would be more appropriately found in Disneyland. In its poor surroundings he almost smiles rather than snarls, his maker must be an amateur. He is definitely in limbo here, no one looks at him, he is totally isolated and his being is meaningless.

Urban Sprawl 182 reminds me of an ancient outdoor shrine in an old landscape, something like Stonehenge. Surrounded by ageless rocks there is an altar. That altar is made of concrete and an asphalt road leads to it. What kind of cruel joke is this? However, there is still a spiritual power surge about it. What God is worshipped here? Will he or she lift or destroy the soul? There is something sacramental in this uneasy emptiness and the unconscious mind resonates with the spirits occupying the shimmering whiteness of this place. 

Monzon captures the moment of eternity and the eternity in the moment at the same time. His photographs show a void, a void that can not be filled.

Exhibition information: Emmanuel Monzon, Urban Sprawl Emptiness, March 16 -May 4, 2019, Robert Kananaj Gallery, 172 St Helens Avenue, Toronto. Gallery hours: Tue – Sat, 11 – 6 pm.

artoronto.ca is an online art magazine that provides an open venue for critical dialogue on the exhibition of contemporary art in Toronto.

PUBLICATION: PELLICOLA MAGAZINE

A state of in-between

Is there beauty in emptiness? Is there beauty in empty overlooked, neglected spaces either? Pretty much, and Emmanuel Monzon work “Urban Sprawl” is a proof. French born, Seattle-based, Emmanuel Monzon was trained as a painter, he has graduated in Beaux-Arts of Paris. Monzon has always seen himself as a painter, he stated in different interviews, who uses the tool of photography as a transitional passage and the visual environment as his raw material.

At a first glance the viewer is amazed by the pastel-toned palette, but few seconds later emptiness wittingly prevails on the perfect linear aesthetic and takes the stage as protagonist of the frame. Monzon portraits American places in a quiet post apocalyptical way. His urban landscapes are, very often, entirely devoid of humans, and yet there is always human presence visible through the traces people left on the landscape: giant billboard, strip malls, industrial parks and highways. Through this repetitive principle of depicting non-places we perceive, and confirmed by Monzon, the hallmark of the French anthropologist Marc Augè. Non-place is a neologism coined by Augè who shows the anodyne and anonymous solitude of places like airports, motorways, parking lots where the transitory occupant has only the illusion of being part of some grand global scheme, on the contrary individuals are connected in a uniform manner and where no social life is possible. However, there is no social critics of this late-capitalist phenomena, there is no judgement, no denunciation in the whole Monzon’s work, rather the understand of a logic of excessive space. It is the emptiness in the great American space which Monzon wants to show, using the codes of New Topographics and the concept of “in between-states”.

Written by Anna Trifiro

About us

Pellicola [/pe'l:ikola/] is an Italian word which meaning stands for film, as film photography's fascination still strikes us through its colors, its grain, its depth and focus held in each shot.

Pellicola Magazine is an independent online magazine.
with the aim to make contemporary photography and all its genres known; from travel shots and landscapes to portraits, from documentary to fine art and more.
It also strives for showcasing photographers from all around the world through exclusive interviews and articles, voicing their works concerning analog or digital photography.

PHOTO.COM:SOLO EXHIBITION

ARTIST STATEMENT: I don't want to go where I'm going I just want to leave where I am.

Around Wendover and Bonneville salt flats. UTAH.

Through my urban sprawl series I am asking myself : am I leaving a city or entering a new environment?

I like to play/'mix' two approaches: The codes of the new topographics and the concept of "in between-two states" inspired by the anthropologist Marc Auge under the name of non-places. I like transitional places, like intersections or passages from one world to another, such as from a residential area to an industrial area. I also like the tourist places altered by the human trace. We often find this feeling of emptiness, of visual paradox by travelling throughout the United States. The transition from one site to the next: You have arrived and at the same time you have never left. I believe that the expansion of the urban or industrial landscape in the American natural landscape has redefined this space and has become itself a "non-place."

In my artwork there is no judgment, no denunciation, only the picture itself. If I could sum up the common theme of my photos, it would be about emptiness, about silence. My pictures try to extract from the mundane urban landscape a form of estheticism. Where most people only pass through, I stop and look for some form of poetic beauty. I like repetition, I like series, and I like driving around.

''There are several common threads woven throughout Emmanuel’s photography. First, he only uses square frames to create a strong focus on the subject, and second, his photos always contain manmade structures or objects, but never any actual people. These two elements combine to cause viewers to perceive a deep void in the photos; an almost post-apocalyptic sense of isolation. By displaying structures humans built to serve their own needs, but in a rare state of absolute idleness, Emmanuel creates an eerily disconcerting environment. Looking at the photos, you can almost hear the chilly silence that’d accompany them.''.Press.

''Trained as a painter,Emmanuel Monzon is mindful of the grey texture of his photographs. His empty landscapes reflect his attachment to forms and colours, giving them space to beheard. To me, the series exhibited at Charbon art Space echoes both the human loneliness and the power of things against a lost American backdrop. This shadow looks like a calm rain of grey while one can hear the rustling leaves of the tree…'' (Caroline Ha Thuc, contributor ArtPress Magazine).

Curator: Sandrine Hermand-Grisel

HUNTER URBAN REVIEW:  Exploring Sprawl through Emmanuel Monzon’s Photography.

While sprawl can mean many things, depending on its context, sprawl typically refers to the dispersion of community. It can be thought of as the need or desire for urban physical expansion. Think suburbs emanating from the cities. As Jane Jacobs describes it, sprawl in all of its manifestations relies on inefficiency and dispersion to the periphery. Photographer Emmanuel Monzon demonstrates that sprawl is more complex than as frequently defined. 

Emmanuel Monzon seeks to capture “the in-between state found in the American landscape… places of transition, borders, passages from one world to another.” Monzon does not seek to make judgements about his subject matter; he lets the photos speak for themselves. Through his work, Monzon tries to highlight the nuances of the mundane aesthetic that appear in sprawl. He explains the  process and premise of his work, “Where most people only pass through, I stop and look for some form of poetic beauty. I like repetition, I like series, and I like driving around.” Revealing the duality of his work and process—a complexity that stems from simplicity—Monzon features man-made structures devoid of people, creating a sense of idleness and isolation. The structures in his work reflect the needs of the people that built them, but also capture how  suburbanization and urban sprawl  affect our landscapes. Car culture and the reliance on vehicles as the main mode of transportation in the U.S. have ultimately created an inorganic landscape that caters to the car. 

In his urban sprawl series, Monzon questions what edges mean and how they change and expand. His photos consider how edges or urban boundaries have stretched to accommodate sprawl and also reveal the spaces beyond the edges of our urban environment.  Monzon photographs the transitional zones within the landscape and asks, “am I leaving a city or entering a new environment?”

Over the last several decades, Las Vegas has come to symbolize urban sprawl. It is a city born from the inhospitality of the desert–a city of decadence and debauchery where the scarce resources of the region are consumed without discretion. According to Rachel Christiansen, Las Vegas is made up of gated communities and monumental development, with urban sprawl surrounding the tourist center of the strip. Because of this, driving is a necessity, yet the city’s structure makes it nearly impossible to do so. As Christiansen states, “people aren’t able to build social capital or build pride amongst themselves for living within a community.”

Despite the fantastical appeal of the Las Vegas wonderland, the bulk of the city is made up of poorly constructed houses without many distinguishing features. However, the mindset that led to the construction of the strip also contributed to this rapid development. The myth of Las Vegas is to ignore restraint and control, which also allowed the city to expand haphazardly.

We tend to think of rural America as having problems that are distinct from urban centers, but as urban sprawl bleeds into rurality, that is not necessarily the case. Rural America suffers from a series of structural problems ranging from systematic marginalization to exclusion from social and economic centers of power to environmental decimation. While the region appears to be inhabited by white conservatives, broad generalization erases the history of the Indigenous, Black, and Immigrant communities that have continued to live in these regions for centuries “in direct defiance of violent white supremacy.”

While urban and suburban sprawl gain the most attention, rural sprawl is also a pressing problem lacking easy definitions or solutions. Physically, it can be defined as  “low density developments that destroy open space, farmland, or forests, with characteristics such as single housing units and out buildings on large lot sizes (usually between one and five acres).”

A component of the American Dream is a staunch individualism that equates land ownership with the ultimate reward: freedom. According to scholar Nate Engle, rural sprawl is a result of conservative America’s near-fetishization of rural and remote spaces coupled with a rejection of the more liberal cultural norms that emerged in the 1960s. This ideology evolved, he claims, from Thomas Jefferson’s emphasis on rural self-sufficiency. However, the critique goes that rural sprawl is no longer primarily representative of pastoral life and has instead been replaced by a long commute and endless resource consumption. This has de-ruralized country spaces, all in the name of individualism. 

While Engle’s theory may delve into the origins of sprawl, it fails to consider more nuanced factors. As cities grow more expensive and labor becomes increasingly scarce, sprawl is an inevitable byproduct of these constraints. Maybe participation in sprawl is less an individual pursuit for freedom and more a response to the economic exclusion cities are coming to embody. In the countryside, in the mountains, or in sprawling desert regions, people still have the perception that they control their destiny. Rural sprawl may be less a rejection of “city” culture than exclusion from it. 

Monzon’s photos, like the spaces he captures, elude easy definition. He reveals the emptiness, isolation, and devoid elements on the edges of transitional zones and urban boundaries. His images give credit to complexity. Never relying on easy stereotypes, he neither fetishizes nor villainizes a place. 

Jennifer Hendricks is a former graduate student in the Urban Policy and Leadership program. Her work focuses on comparative urban policy, with a specific interest in regional understandings of community development and public space. She can be found at https://www.jennhendricks.com/

PUBLICATION ALL ABOUT PHOTO MAGAZINE: Interview about exhibition (Toronto RKG Gallery)

Emmanuel Monzon is a talented French photographer and visual artist based in Seattle, WA. We discovered his work through All About Photo Awards and AAP Magazine. In his project "Urban Sprawl Emptiness" he photographs the in-between state found in the American landscape. You can currently see his project at Robert Kananaj Gallery in Toronto, CA from March 16 until May 4, 2019. We asked him a few questions about his life and work:

All About Photo: Tell us about your first introduction to photography?

Emmanuel Monzon: As a trained plastic artist (I graduated from the Beaux-Arts in Paris), I have always worked with images and the stakes of its representation. I've always been fascinated by images, be they from photography, cinema, advertising, TV shows. However I started with painting (specializing in drawings and pastel colors). For a long time, I reproduced in drawing 'poor' photography from catalogs, leaflets, with zero aesthetical aspects, at real scale and I have a lot of it. My approach to photography comes from this time, which is linked to questioning an image, its representation, its reproduction, its broadcasting. Anecdotally, toward the end of this period, I ended up exhibiting large scale photography of my own urban landscape drawings on tracing paper.

About ten years ago, I felt the need to use the medium of photography. In practice, I always see myself as a painter who uses the tool of photography as a transitional passage. I'm in the in-between, I'm a photographer who paints or a painter who uses photography.

AAP: When did you start working on "Urban Sprawl Emptiness"?

Emmanuel Monzon: As soon as I arrived in Seattle, I had the intuition that my work had to continue through the medium of photography, it was obvious to me. I had the feeling that my work could only be photographic for this space, which creates its own mythology. One understands very quickly that one is going to be on perpetual move on this territory; Somehow I became nomadic and the only tool I need is a camera. I also quickly realized that I was going to live in my own subject and that it was a privilege.

This generic title, "Urban Sprawl Emptiness", was imposed by the seriality and the repetition of my subjects of predilections: the deserts of the American West and their poetic and chaotic processions of motorway interchanges, the cities without centers, the residential zones without inhabitants. I have the feeling that the extension, the identical and omnipresent reproduction of the trace of the humans on this territory, ultimately shrinks the world.

I believe that the expansion of the urban or industrial landscape in the American natural landscape has redefined this space and has become itself a "non-place." The transition from one site to the next: You have arrived and at the same time you have never left.

AAP: Why did you choose a square format?

Emmanuel Monzon: The square is above all the rigor almost ascetic.

This framing guides and defines my line of work, it is a choice of voluntary restriction, which obliges me not to return entirely in the codes of the photograph, and limits my field of action in a deliberate way. It allows me to focus on the subject, to put it at a distance, to create a soft tension. Symbolically I find that the square format sends back an image of stability, solidity, and neutrality, it wants to be objective. This format forces me to make choices, to be more rigorous. In a way, it creates boundaries to my field of action. The square symbolizes the stop, or moment taken, an idea of stagnation of solidification. It is the perfect balance, and imposes its structure on my images, and puts order in my composition.

This rigor I also apply to my selection during my solo show for urban sprawl emptiness series, it is a drastic selection, and few pieces are exposed.
MORE WEBSITE (.....) AAP: What are your upcoming projects?

Emmanuel Monzon: I have just finished preparing a solo show that will present a series of 20 pieces for a Canadian Gallery (RKG Gallery-Toronto, Exhibition from the 16th of March to the 4th of May), and I am very excited to be part of this exhibition.


All about the exhibition: Urban Sprawl: Emptiness, Emmanuel Monzon Photographs
16 March - 4 May, 2019

Robert Kananaj Gallery is honoured to bring to the Toronto public an opportunity to experience the photographs of Emmanuel Monzon. When so much is invested in what is loud and in your face, Monzon's "Urban Sprawl" series finds an opposing refuge in emptiness and silence. The artist invites one's experience, conversing in a no-man's land bordering the collision of cultures.

"...I capture places of transition, borders, passages from one world to another. Am I leaving a city or entering a new environment?... If I could sum up the common theme of my photos, it would be about emptiness, silence." - Emmanuel Monzon

Statement:  Emmanuel Monzon at Robert Kananaj Galleryby Cary Benbow

Art Vibes: Emmanuel Monzon - Urban Sprawl Emptiness

Urban Sprawl Emptiness è la serie fotografica ongoing dell’artista e fotografo Emmanuel Monzon, un viaggio attraverso un inedito paesaggio urbano americano, una polifonia di non luoghi e spazi di transizione carichi di vuoti, silenzi e solitudini.

Gli scatti in questione sono il risultato di calibrati equilibri compositivi, plastiche interpretazioni di mondi di mezzo dove la vita sembra essersi fermata e mai ripartita. L’attitudine al disegno e alla pittura di Monzon emerge chiaramente dalla scelta di ritrarre toni e cromie tenui e accennate, le sue “fotografie povere” delineano un’estetica arida, cruda, terribilmente aderente al reale.

Urban Sprawl Emptiness esplora la serialità di paesaggi urbani dimenticati: deserti, interscambi autostradali, città senza centri, zone residenziali senza abitanti, tracce di un evidente passato passaggio umano, ora privo di consistenza.

“Credo che l’espansione del paesaggio urbano o industriale nel paesaggio naturale americano abbia ridefinito lo spazio, oggi diventato esso stesso un non-luogo.“

di Redazione Art Vibe.

Urban Sprawl Emptiness is the ongoing photographic series by the artist and photographer Emmanuel Monzon, a journey through an unprecedented American urban landscape, a polyphony of non-places and transition spaces full of voids, silences and solitudes.The shots in question are the result of calibrated compositional balances, plastic interpretations of worlds in the middle where life seems to have stopped and never started again. Monzon's aptitude for drawing and painting clearly emerges from the choice to portray soft and hinted tones and colors, his "poor photographs" outline an arid, raw aesthetic, terribly adherent to reality. Urban Sprawl Emptiness explores the seriality of forgotten urban landscapes: deserts, motorway interchanges, cities without centers, residential areas without inhabitants, traces of an evident past human passage, now devoid of consistency. "I believe that the expansion of the urban or industrial landscape in the American natural landscape has redefined space, which today has become a non-place itself."

fr:

Urban Sprawl Emptiness est une série photographique en cours de l'artiste et photographe Emmanuel Monzon, un voyage à travers un paysage urbain américain sans précédent, une polyphonie de non-lieux et d'espaces de transition pleins de vides, de silences et de solitudes. Les plans en question sont le résultat d'équilibres de composition calibrés, d'interprétations plastiques d'un mondes où la vie semble s'être arrêtée et ne jamais recommencer. L'aptitude de Monzon au dessin et à la peinture émerge clairement du choix de dépeindre des tons et des couleurs douces et teintées, ses «pauvres photographies» esquissent une esthétique aride et brute, terriblement adhérente à la réalité. L'étalement urbain explore la sérialité des paysages urbains oubliés: déserts, échangeurs autoroutiers, villes sans centres, zones résidentielles sans habitants, traces d'un passage humain passé évident, désormais dénué de cohérence.

"Je crois que l'expansion du paysage urbain ou industriel dans le paysage naturel américain a redéfini l'espace, qui est devenu aujourd'hui un non-lieu".

By Cary Benbow: 

 writer and regular contributor to F-Stop Magazine,  Lensculture,YIELD Magazine,Wobneb Magazine.

The work of Emmanuel Monzon embodies an approach of capturing the aesthetic of the banal, and grasping the everyday scene in such a way as to render it both an image and a screen for the projection of wishes and fantasies in the intermediate zone between urban and rural America. The uneasy emptiness found there results in an independent identity.

Monzon’s work falls into a space bordered traditionally and contemporarily by Giorgio de Chirico, Edward Hopper, Richard Misrach, and Michael Kenna. Formal aspects of Monzon’s images echo aspects of rendering the inanimate and the animate in a play of light and shadow, forms and patterns. Monzon’s animate elements are blatantly absent, but nonetheless, this deliberate strategy is hauntingly reminiscent of their cropping, use of foreground and concentration on visual elements which Monzon uses to make a comment on urban sprawl, and the twenty-first century tension experienced between occupied and unoccupied spaces. Kenna and Misrach both deal with the subject of landscape and explore the effects of human interaction and isolation. Their visions are achieved through long exposures, or expansive vistas, but Monzon chooses to take the baton of simplicity and clarity, and drive away with it. His automotive wanderings spur meaningful photographs in his response to the land. His quiet studies of shape, form, pattern, signage and landscape are a respite amidst the uneasy ‘non-places’, which he associates to the expansion of the urban or industrial landscape in the American natural landscape.

Monzon chose to photograph the in-between state found in the American landscape. He captures places of transition. A visual segue which gives the traveller an enigma. The limbo caught by his lens holds the viewer in check, and begs the question: am I leaving someplace or entering another? The disconcerting environment inspires him. The emptiness in both the urban landscape, and in the great American spaces. He mixes two approaches: The codes of the new topographics and the concept of ‘in-between two states’ as inspired by the anthropologist Marc Auge. These transitional non-places are like intersections or passages from one world to another, such as going from a residential area to an industrial area. Monzon includes views of tourist locations which are altered by human influence. We often find a feeling of emptiness, of visual paradox when encountering these spaces when traveling throughout the United States. By displaying structures humans built to serve their own needs, but in a rare state of absolute idleness, he creates a disconcerting environment. The visual irony of the significant impact of people upon their surrounding environment, and their notable absence in his images results in an eerie, surreal tension that stops viewers in their tracks. 

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EXHIBITION: Toronto, Canada. RKG Gallery: Solo Show (Urban Sprawl Emptiness) Toronto. arty.net

Robert Kananaj Gallery is honoured to bring to the Toronto public an opportunity to experience the photographs of Emmanuel Monzon. When so much is invested in what is loud and in your face, Monzon's "Urban Sprawl" series finds an opposing refuge in emptiness and silence. The artist invites one's experience, conversing in a no-man's land bordering the collision of cultures.

PUBLICATION: FEATURE SHOOT MAGAZINE- A Photographic Duet of Flesh & Spirit, Earth & Animal, by Miss Rosen

Consider our propensity for seeing duality everywhere we go, on a quest to reduce the dialectic to a conversation centered in an “either/or” proposition as though half is greater than the whole. One of the primary flaws of binary thought is the way it triggers a hierarchical impulse that is patently false. It is neither “either/or” but “and” — the perception of the holistic nature of the universe.

On the whole, this takes more effort to assert, to swim against tides that define our radically polarized times. Sometimes it’s less an effort and more a response to what already exists. For French photographers Antoine D’agata and Emmanuel Monzon, this dynamic revealed itself in the exhibition of their work by Charbon Space in Fine Art Asia 2018.

In the photographs of Antoine D’Agata, the very fabric of the flesh becomes a radiant field of energy, at once murky and diaphanous as though we might dissolve and disintegrate into our spiritual essence for a taste of eternity. In D’Agata, we feel an insistent intensity, the impassioned whisper of a wordless truth that knows that pain and pleasure exist like the ouroburo, a snake eating its tail.

In counterpoint is the work of Emmanuel Monzon, which takes us to the very edges of urban sprawl. Here solidity reigns supreme, as “progress” eats its way into the landscape, ignoring the perils of climate change. In Monzon’s work, the see the last moments of the natural landscape, before the earth as it stood for millions of years is desecrated by our limitless desire for expansion. Monzon captures the banality of it all, the essential ugliness of the unstoppable development of the earth.

The soft, beige light of Monzon’s work reads like a sedative, a seductive little pill that lulls us into a false sense of entitlement as it alienates us from our true selves. Here, in this perfectly plastic world of picture perfect harmony, D’Agata’s photographs acquire a new layer of depth as we consider his choice of subjects — people who could not go along with illusions we assert in the name of “normalcy.”

D’Agata looks at people who have fallen through the cracks, lost to prostitution, drugs, and violence. Theirs is a story that has been widely capitalized on by the mainstream media and entertainment industries, easy targets for moralizers, provocateurs, and opportunists. D’agata denies these narratives in favor of something more profound: an understanding comes from bearing witness to the sacred soul.

His is a journey into the interior, into depths without end that can never be known, the perfect complement to the insatiable desire to escape the truth that lies here that drives us to consume the earth as though we are the greatest form of pestilence nature has ever known.

About Miss Rosen: In the intervening decades, her work has appeared in glossies including L’Uomo Vogue, Grey, Bust, Swindle, King Kong, and Jocks & Nerds – well as websites including AnOther, AnOther Man, Aperture, Dazed, Feature Shoot, Huck, Crave, L’Oeil de la Photographie, The Undefeated, Vice, and Vogue.

FR:

Considérez notre propension à voir la dualité partout où nous allons, dans une quête pour réduire la dialectique à une conversation centrée sur une proposition du type «autre / ou», comme si la moitié était plus grande que la totalité. L'un des principaux défauts de la pensée binaire est la façon dont elle déclenche une impulsion hiérarchique qui est manifestement fausse. Ce n'est ni “ni / ou” mais “et” - la perception de la nature holistique de l'univers.
Au total, cela demande plus d’efforts pour s’affirmer, pour nager contre les courants qui définissent notre époque radicalement polarisée. Parfois, il s’agit moins d’un effort que d’une réponse à ce qui existe déjà. Pour les photographes français Antoine D’Agata et Emmanuel Monzon, cette dynamique s’est révélée lors de l’exposition de leur travail par Charbon Space lors de Fine Art Asia 2018.

Sur les photographies d’Antoine D’Agata, le tissu même de la chair devient un champ d’énergie rayonnant, à la fois trouble et diaphane, comme si nous pouvions nous dissoudre et nous désintégrer dans notre essence spirituelle pour un goût d’éternité. Dans D’Agata, nous ressentons une intensité persistante, le murmure passionné d’une vérité sans mots qui sait que la douleur et le plaisir existent comme l’ Ouroburo, un serpent qui se ronge la queue.

En contrepoint se trouve le travail d’Emmanuel Monzon, qui nous mène aux limites de l’étalement urbain. La solidité y règne alors que le «progrès»s'insinue dans le paysage en ignorant les dangers du changement climatique. Dans l’œuvre de Monzon, nous voyons les derniers moments du paysage naturel, avant que la terre telle qu’elle se dressait depuis des millions d’années soit profanée par notre désir illimité d’expansion. Monzon capture la banalité de tout cela, la laideur essentielle du développement imparable de la terre.
La lumière douce et beige de l’œuvre de Monzon se lit comme un sédatif, une petite pilule séduisante qui nous plonge dans un faux sentiment de droit alors qu’elle nous éloigne de notre véritable identité.

Ici, dans ce monde parfaitement plastique d’harmonie parfaite entre images, les photographies de D’Agata acquièrent une nouvelle couche de profondeur à mesure que nous considérons son choix de sujets- des personnes qui ne pourraient pas se laisser aller aux illusions que nous affirmons au nom de «normalité».
D’Agata s’intéresse aux personnes déchues,perdues dans la prostitution, la drogue et la violence. Leur histoire a été largement capitalisée par les principaux médias et les industries du divertissement, cibles faciles pour les moralistes, les provocateurs et les opportunistes. D’Agata nie ces récits en faveur de quelque chose de plus profond: une compréhension vient du témoignage de l’âme sacrée.
Il s’agit d’un voyage dans l’intérieur, dans des profondeurs sans fin qu’il est impossible de connaître, un complément parfait au désir insatiable d’échapper à la vérité qui nous pousse à consommer la terre comme si nous étions la plus grande forme de peste que la nature ait jamais connue.

Feature Shoot showcases the work of international emerging and established photographers who are transforming the medium through compelling, cutting-edge projects. With contributing writers from all over the world and a wide range of interests, we feature contemporary work in all genres of photography: fine art, documentary, portrait, still life, landscape and more. We believe that photography is a powerful mode of storytelling, and share works that have a strong narrative vision. Started in 2008 by Alison Zavos, Feature Shoot has now amassed an archive of over 4,000 posts of exceptional photography from around the globe.

PUBLICATION: US OF AMERICA MAGAZINE Through the Lens: Emmanuel Monzon

There is beauty in emptiness, just take a look at the Instagram account of French born, Seattle-based photographer, Emmanuel Monzon (@emmanuelmonzonphotography). A self-proclaimed fan of “repetition, series and driving around” Monzon’s work evokes a nostalgia for reclaiming ‘lost’ space. That is, those transient places that are either overlooked, neglected or both. 

From gas stations and motorways to motels and parking lots, it’s a credit to Monzon artistry that these places seem wholly inviting and, quite frankly, magical. His photography certainly evokes a Wes Anderson/Disney-esque sensibility (Monzon, like Anderson, attests to having a rigorous, highly thought-out process when it comes to his photography). The muted palette of his Urban Sprawl series, for instance, saturates what we might consider to be otherwise banal, visually, with an inviting hazy glow. Likening his method to that of a painter (“I think first about the sketch, the draft. Then, I work my picture like a painting on a canvas, I select the colors.”) it’s not surprising, then, that you start start to question if what you’re looking at is reality or fantasy. 

In fact, the hyperrealism that underscores Monzon’s work is so powerful that it asks you to reconsider what lies in your own backyard. To rehash that old cliche that it takes an ‘outsider’ to teach us something new, Monzon’s photography shows us the beauty of the American landscape– an America past and present hiding in plain sight. 

Find about more about Monzon, his photography, and mantra below.

INTERVIEW:

When did you begin to take an interest in photography? 

A trained plastic artist (graduate of the Beaux-Arts of Paris), I have always worked with the image and the stakes of its representation. About ten years ago, I felt the need to use the medium of photography. In practice, I always see myself as a painter who uses the tool of photography as a transitional passage. I'm in the in-between, I'm a photographer who paints or a painter who uses photography. 

As soon as I arrived in Seattle, I had the intuition that my work had to continue through the medium of photography, it was obvious to me. I had the feeling that my work could only be photographic for this space, which creates its own mythology. One understands very quickly that one is going to be on perpetual move on this territory; Somehow I became nomadic and the only tool I need is a camera. I also quickly realized that I was going to live in my own subject and that it was a privilege.

How would you describe your work/aesthetic? 

There is no judgement in my work, no denunciation, I am in the statement (if critic there is, whether it is political or social, it does not belong to me and I leave it to the audience). This visual environment is my raw material and it is my graphic material. 

My field work is a country where the landscape is shaped by and for mobility, it forms a sort of generic visual disorder throughout the territory, built around a repetitive principle: the separate house, the strip mall, the giant billboard, the industrial park, and the highway. Without moods, this world is in perpetual mutation that makes one city raises and another one does, and that let them coexist indifferently side by side. This visual chaos becomes unrecognizable to become an abstraction. This is where my favorite workplace is...my playground. 

Regarding the treatment of my photos, I do not refute a form of aesthetics or even poetry while leaving a narrative part, free for the spectator to interpret the photo. My Mantra is simple: I like repetitions, I like series, and I like driving around.

Who/what inspires you? 

What inspires me is the emptiness in the urban landscape or in the great American spaces. I like to play/'mix' two approaches: The codes of the new topographics and the concept of "in between-two states" inspired by the anthropologist Marc Auge under the name of non-places. I like transitional places, like intersections or passages from one world to another, such as from a residential area to an industrial area. I also like the tourist places altered by the human trace. We often find this feeling of emptiness, of visual paradox by travelling throughout the United States. The transition from one site to the next: You have arrived and at the same time you have never left. I believe that the expansion of the urban or industrial landscape in the American natural landscape has redefined this space and has become itself a "non-place." 

What’s your go-to camera? 

My go to camera is simply a PANASONIC LUMIX DMC GX8, I just changed the lens to a LEICA DG SUMMILUX 25MM and the LEICA 35-100. I need to have it handy, ready to shoot. I don’t have sentimental attachment to my camera, I only hope for efficiency. I belong to the digital generation. Without this numeric revolution, I would not have had the chance to be in this discipline. 

How much planning goes into your work? 

I plan my road-trips, checking google and building my itineraries. I usually travel either with my family or with friends, knowing I need someone to drive so I can spot the places I want to shoot. Below is the process I usually go through:

I drive around a lot.

I like to circle around the subject, map it. 

I can stay a long time in a specific place and shoot it thoroughly multiple times. 

Sometimes the frame is obvious, but not always. I know that the subject is there but I cannot really see it so I shoot obsessively hoping to find a result when back at my studio.

I can also come back to the same place many times. 

Then, back to the studio.

a. I sort out
b. I extract my storyline
c. I do the first step of framing (always using square frames) 
d. I choose the color that will stand out for the series
e. I let the series rest for several days
f. I go back to it, repeating the same process from a to e

Lately, I don’t discard the leftovers, I re-work them several months later and sometimes I can find new directions. As I said before, I am using the same process as a painter. I think first about the sketch, the draft. Then, I work my picture like a painting on a canvas, I select the colors. Throughout this process, a series emerge, articulated around its own story, its place, its mood.

What inspired your move to the US? 

After leaving Paris in 2006, I lived in Asia for seven years before moving to the US. I moved to Seattle almost six years go. We moved here with our two boys because my wife had a job opportunity.

As a photographer, what do you find so appealing about the American landscape? 

I will particularly mention the landscapes of the American West, which has a special vibe. I find a lot of pleasure working in this infinite space, even if I often travel through a chaotic society built on social pain, forgetfulness, even survival mode. This feeling is accentuated by the mixture of two strong realities living side by side: a landscape (a horizon, a sky that crushes you with its presence) and an anarchic, oppressive urban extension. The challenge of my work is to create an harmony between these two worlds (a romantic aesthetic). It is in this iconic landscape of the American West, subject to a permanent reinterpretation that I try to find my way, my truth, while asking myself how to manage in this world.

When were you first introduced to the concept of “Urban Sprawl?” 

Urban sprawl emptiness was evident from my favorite subjects in this endeavor. At the beginning of this project, the title also included the location where the photo was taken. However, over time it did not seem necessary to indicate it anymore. It did not matter, and seemed anecdotal. This generic title was imposed by the seriality and the repetition of my subjects of predilections: the deserts of the American West and their poetic and chaotic processions of motorway interchanges, the cities without centers, the residential zones without inhabitants. I have the feeling that the extension, the identical and omnipresent reproduction of the trace of the humans on this territory, ultimately shrinks the world. 

Favorite place to shoot? 

Most of them were created in the Western US, around Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and more broadly in the states of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and California as well as in my area: the state of Washington.

Favorite American photographers? 

As a young adult, I always admired painters such as Giorgio De Chirico (geometrical figures, little to no human presence, something appeasing but also oppressing), Edward Hopper for his static compositions and his true American landscapes, as well as Mike Bayne. With regards to photographers, my favorites include: Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Bill Owens, Robert Frank, Gregory Crewdson, Gordon Parks, Joel Meyerowitz, Todd Hido, Robert Frank, Patrick Joust.

If you weren’t a photographer, what would you be?

A question that I do not ask myself anymore! 

Song of choice for your American road trip? 

A playlist for American road-trips as seen by a French guy who lives in the US:
Run The Jewels, Lilly Wood and The Prick, Kendra Morris, A$AP Rocky, Brother Ali, The Black Keys, Ratatat, The Raconteurs, The Heavy, Dan Auerbach, Fox, The Doors, Rumsprings, The Dead Weather, Creedence Clearwater Revival, PJ Harvey, Jain, Blues Pills, The Flying Eyes, Bill Withers, Findlay, Black Sabbath, Goldfrapp, Beck, Ceelo Green, Deluxe, Mos Def, and many more...

What’s next? 

In project with my gallery Privateview (Torino-Italy), is a group exhibition at the Code Art Fair (Copenhagen-Denmark).

The Journal of American Culture and Style

Us of America celebrates and illuminates the spirit of America at a divisive time in our country’s history. Contemporary yet nostalgic, Us of America presents stories from across our cultural landscape. Visionaries, vanguards, and everyday heroes from the fields of photography, fashion, and music, sit alongside investigative features and witty commentary.

Working with esteemed American and International contributors, Us of America seeks to cover a wide range of topics that speaks to a global audience. Mixing humor with pathos, new and old, Us of America champions the diversity and complexity of America - its history and its people.

Press Release: (Artsy) by CHARBON for Fine Art Asia 2018-Hong Kong

The work of Emmanuel Monzon focuses primarily on the idea of urban sprawling and the expansion of its periphery. Monzon photographs banality as though it were a Romantic painting, trying only to be “stronger than this big nothing” in controlling the space by framing the subject. His aesthetic of the banal obeys its own rules : a ban on living objects , a precise geometrical organization , and the revelation of a specific physical and mental landscape blurring the lines between city and suburb, between suburb and countryside, a process that results in an independent identity. Monzon thematically consistent work highlights things that make their surroundings appear quite empty and soulless. An unnerving set of social observations. Yet the tenderness of his colouring softens the quite harsh social comment his images tend to deliver. There is an absolute stillness in the images : nothing moves, not even time. Monzon grasps what is simple, and that is difficult.
Emptiness, absence, lack of a meaningful world : subjects are not inherently expressive yet they convey a deep sense of grief over the loss of meaning. Time has come to a stop. The absence of shadows and the pinkish grey mist often give a strong and disturbing impression of dream. Does these places really exist ? The reflection redeems and heals the wounds a mindless world inflicts on reality, and transforms an unstructured and empty present into a bearable memory.

"The aesthetic of the void in my photographic work attempts to understand our current environment : can it be one of de-civilization? “ E.Monzon

FR:

Le travail d'Emmanuel Monzon porte principalement sur l'idée de l'étalement urbain et de l'expansion de sa périphérie. Monzon photographie la banalité comme une peinture romantique, essayant seulement d'être «plus fort que ce grand rien» en contrôlant l'espace en encadrant le sujet. Son esthétique du banal obéit à ses propres règles: une interdiction des objets vivants, une organisation géométrique précise et la révélation d’un paysage physique et mental spécifique brouillant les frontières entre ville et banlieue, entre banlieue et campagne, un processus qui aboutit à une identité indépendante. Le travail thématiquement cohérent de Monzon met en évidence des éléments qui donnent à leur environnement une apparence vide et sans âme. Un ensemble déconcertant d'observations sociales. Pourtant, la tendresse de sa couleur adoucit le commentaire social assez dur que ses images ont tendance à livrer. Il y a une immobilité absolue dans les images: rien ne bouge, pas même le temps. Monzon saisit ce qui est simple, et c'est difficile.
Vide, absence, manque de sens: les sujets ne sont pas intrinsèquement expressifs, mais ils transmettent un profond sentiment de chagrin face à la perte de sens. Le temps s'est arrêté. L'absence d'ombres et le brouillard gris rosé donnent souvent une impression forte et inquiétante de rêve. Est-ce que ces endroits existent vraiment? La réflexion rachète et guérit les blessures qu'un monde aveugle inflige à la réalité transforme un présent vide et non structuré en une mémoire supportable.

« L'esthétique du vide dans mon travail photographique tente de comprendre notre environnement actuel: peut-il s'agir d'un phénomène de « dé-civilisation »? » Emmanuel Monzon 

Gallery CHARBON

Antoine D’AGATA is a French photographer born in Marseilles in 1961, where he spent his teenage years in violent combats for political militancy. Fascinated by the marginality, he had shared total experiences with whores, junkies, thugs. In 2001 he published “Hometown”, and won the Niépce Prize for young photographers. He continued to exhibit and publish regularly: “Vortex” and “Insomnia” were published in 2003, “Stigma” in 2004, “Manifeste” in 2005.

In 2004 D'Agata joined Magnum Photos and in the same year he shot his first short film “Le Ventre du Monde” (The World's Belly). This experiment led to his long feature film “Aka Ana”, shot in 2006 in Tokyo.

PUBLICATION/INTERVIEW: F-STOP MAGAZINE

Interview with photographer Emmanuel Monzon by Cary Benbow

Emmanuel Monzon is a french photographer and visual artist based in Seattle, WA. He graduated from the Academy of Beaux-Arts in Paris, France with honors. His work has been featured throughout the US, Europe and Asia. His work is represented by galleries in Europe and Asia, and his work is exhibited widely. I know Monzon’s work, have interviewed him a few years ago, and have followed his projects over that time.

We had the opportunity recently to talk about his portfolio featured in the October portfolio issue. His Urban Sprawl Emptiness portfolio focuses primarily on the idea of urban sprawl and the expansion of its periphery. According to Monzon, he “photographs urban banality as though it were a Romantic painting, trying to be ‘stronger than this big nothing’ in controlling the space by framing the subject.” Monzon’s aesthetic of the banal obeys its own rules: a ban on living objects, a precise geometrical organization, and the revelation of a specific physical and mental landscape blurring the lines between city and suburb, between suburb and countryside, a process that results in an independent identity.

Monzon’s images are often shot at a low perspective with the camera placed on the ground. This approach gives the viewer a fresh take on how we observe the world around us; buildings, cars, even sidewalks take on depth and scale not seen otherwise. This is one of the strengths in Monzon’s work that gives a new perspective at what casual observers of landscape often overlook. He adheres to using a square format for his images, and a rule to never include people in the images; while the influence of people upon the urban spaces is undeniable. The visual irony of the significant impact of people upon their surrounding environment, and their notable absence in his images results in an eerie, surreal tension.

In addition to his signature style in the Urban Sprawl Emptiness work, Monzon creates other related work. “I work on parallel projects, like the night pictures series I produced,” Monzon adds, “with black and white as well as color pictures. There is also a series born from the specific atmosphere created by the light in the early or late hours of the day or by the fog that often surrounds the place where I live. These three series have the suburban streets of American cities in common.”

We discussed his inspirations for the work, and he stated, “What inspires me is the emptiness in the urban landscape or in the great American spaces. I like to mix the two approaches: The codes of the new topographics and the concept of ‘in-between two states’ inspired by the anthropologist Marc Auge. I like these transitional non-places, like intersections or passages from one world to another, such as going from a residential area to an industrial area. I also like the tourist places altered by human influence. We often find this feeling of emptiness, of visual paradox by traveling throughout the United States.”

I asked Monzon about the way this transition is portrayed in his work. He says, “The transition from one site to the next gives the feeling you have arrived, and at the same time you have never left. I believe that the expansion of the urban or industrial landscape in the American natural landscape has redefined this space and has become itself a ‘non-place’.”

Many photographers keep notes about the locations where they shoot, and often include unrelated journal entries. I asked Monzon if he keeps a journal. He replies, “I don’t keep a journal because my approach is dictated by my constant travel around places. I drive, I look around, I stop, I take pictures. And when I am back in my studio, I often have reminiscence of places I have visited and pictures that I have taken that makes me want to go back and explore new territories or angles. My approach is like one of a topographer, I don’t write, I visualize.” This fits with his mantra: “where most people only pass through, I stop and look for some form of poetic beauty. I like repetition, I like series, and I like driving around.”

When we talked about the subject of starting a new series of photos, Monzon says, “If all goes well, I am in the process of planning a road trip of a week in New Mexico to go and visit specific spots I have already identified and selected. I am always working on my next possible trip based on places of interests for me that I want to photograph.”

About Cary Benbow

photographer, writer - F-Stop Magazine, Lensculture, YIELD Magazine, Wobneb Magazine. www.carybenbow.com

F-Stop Magazine is an online photography magazine featuring contemporary photography from established and emerging photographers from around the world. Each issue has a theme or an idea that the unites the photographs to create a dynamic dialogue among the artists. Founded in 2003 and published online, bi-monthly.

PUBLICATION:

Newspaper: LENTA.RU (Russia) No lights, skyscrapers or people, European swam the ocean and saw another America

Lenta.ru is a Moscow-based online newspaper in Russian language,  It is one of the most popular Russian language online resources with over 600 thousand visitors daily.

MSN.COM (Russia):  Без огней, небоскребов и людей

What is a city? A huge machine, the details of which are in constant motion.The city and emptiness are concepts that would seem incompatible - except in the films about the end of the world. Shops without people evoke horror, as if cold emanated from abandoned buildings. The French photographer Emmanuel Monzon does not think so: in the urban silence he sees the beautiful and skillfully conveys his vision through the pictures - you want to look at them, although they are strange. Lenta.ru publishes a selection of the best works of the master.

Monzon is a Frenchman who moved to the United States. He chose not popular and friendly California and not even New York open to any creative experiments,but  Seattle - a rainy city in Washington state.

One of the most famous series of photos published by the master is called Urban Sprawl. “The American landscape is wide, full of inspiration, drama and beauty - but it also has voids. My photos explore something between these two poles, ”explains the author.

Monzon shoots landscapes created by human hands, but completely deprived of life - empty roads and streets, useless road signs, strange billboards,addressed either to the disappeared or to the never existing public.

The goal is to show the rapid expansion of the boundaries of cities. Monzon does not remove anything special, but he rather frames the banality in the“correct” frame. These are real romantic pictures.

“My photos are an attempt to extract aestheticism from the urban landscape.I stop in those places that most often go unnoticed, and I look for poetic beauty in them. I like repetition, series. I love to drive a car back and forth, ”the master writes on the Lensculture website.

The photographer has an Instagram account, about 20 thousand people have subscribed to it. Real connoisseurs in the comments do not hesitate to call the pictures taken by Monzon, masterpieces.

“There is no judgment in my work, I am not trying to convince anyone - there is only the image itself. If I had to name the general theme of my photos, I would say that they are about emptiness and silence, ”adds the Frenchman.

Monzon has a strict rule - nothing alive in the pictures. Of the almost three thousand publications on his Instagram page, only a few contain images of people - and these are usually very small and impersonal figures.

Emptiness, loneliness, a clear lack of meaning - captured in the photo cannot help but sadness. As if someone is lost in time and space.

Monzon’s America is generally very unrealistic, as if existing only in the head of the photographer himself. Although these places are in fact from somewhere - many see them every day, but do not notice - the “joints” between cities and nature are not marked with red lines, they are ephemeral and, as Monzon proved, in their own way beautiful.

RUSSIA:

Без огней,небоскребов и людей

Европеец переплыл океан и увиделдругую Америку

Что такое город? Огромная машина,детали которой находятся в постоянном движении. Город и пустота — понятия,казалось бы, несовместимые — разве что в фильмах о конце света. Магазины безлюдей навевают ужас, от заброшенных зданий как будто исходит холод. Французскийфотограф Эммануэль Монзон так не считает: в урбанистической тишине он видитпрекрасное и умело передает свое видение через снимки — на них хочетсясмотреть, хотя они странные. «Лента.ру» публикуетподборку лучших работ мастера.

(More Website)

DODHO MAGAZINE: Interview with Emmanuel Monzon ; Honorable Mention in our Black & White 2018

{....MORE WEBSITE} "In your opinion, what makes a black & white Photography

Personally, when I am working on a black & white series, what is important for me is that the color black must be truly black and that the color white must be truly white. To be more precise, the black and white play important roles in photography, and I use them to create the atmosphere that I desire. I mostly do black and white photos during the night, because I think the black and white contrast more during the night. Generally, it is in these conditions that a unique atmosphere can be created.

How much preparation do you put into taking a photography?

I do not have any rules concerning when I take photos, during my travels, I am letting myself taken by the discovery of places. However, sometimes, I locate certain areas and I return to these areas to work with the conditions that suits me, like the lighting or atmosphere.

What do you think makes a memorable project? 

The memorable project is always the next one, as I always hope that the next project I do will surpass my previous projects. That is why I am always excited to prepare my next voyage, but also anxious because I am never sure that I will be able to surpass my previous projects. I am always a servant of the nature, atmosphere, and lighting that I cannot control. What is great about photography is that an area tells different stories based on the climate, whether it is night or day, clear or foggy, it always has different things to say.

How do you know you got the shot you wanted?

There are also no rules concerning the perfect shot. Sometimes, however, the perfect shot presents itself on its own, and the only thing to do is to take the shot, but for me, the perfect shot presents itself when I am working on the photos in my studio, the framing makes the most difference when working on a photo. When the balance of your photo is strong, it will tell an interesting story.{....} MORE WEBSITE...

Dodho Magazine is an independent international magazine, born with the vocation to promote the work and projects of emerging photographers and professionals from all over the world. Since its launch in April 2013, Dodho Magazine has uncovered countless photographers and put their work in the spotlight of professionals in the photographic industry. Dodho Magazine has managed to become the fastest growing photo magazine and become a benchmark among galleries, agencies and other publishers around the world.

PUBLICATION: FISHEYE MAGAZINE

FR:

Emmanuel Monzon vit actuellement à Seattle, aux États-Unis. Il se considère comme un peintre qui utilise la photographie comme un passage transitionnel. « Je suis dans l’entre-deux, je suis un photographe qui peint ou un peintre qui utilise la photographie », explique-t-il. Quant à son approche ? « Elle est méticuleuse et désordonnée à la fois ». Le format carré, sa signature, lui permet de « « focuser » sur le sujet principal ». Les images qui composent Urban sprawl emptiness ont été réalisées ces cinq dernières années dans l’Ouest américain et dans les états du Nevada, de l’Utah, de l’Arizona et de Californie ainsi que dans sa région, l’état de Washington. Emmanuel Monzon est fasciné par le vide dans le paysage urbain et les espaces de transition. « On retrouve souvent cette sensation de vide, de paradoxe visuel en se déplaçant aux États-Unis. Je crois que l’expansion du paysage urbain ou industriel dans le paysage américain a redéfini cet espace et qu’il est devenu lui-même un « non-lieu » », confie le photographe.

EN:

Emmanuel Monzon currently lives in Seattle, United States. He considers himself a painter, using photography as a means of transition. ‘I am either one of them, I am a photographer who paints, or a painter using photography’ , he explains. His approach? ‘Both meticulous and messy’. His signature trait, the square format enables him to focus on the main subject. The pictures that fill Urban sprawl emptiness were made across five years spent in the American west, in the States of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, California, and his home state, Washington. Emmanuel Monzon is fascinated by emptiness in urban landscapes, by border areas. ‘We always feel this emptiness, this visual paradox, traveling across the US. I believe the expansion of urban and industrial landscapes have redefined the American space, turning it into a ‘non-space’’, the photographer confesses.

About FISHEYE MAGAZINE

• Des photographes émergents – pour reprendre l’expression consacrée – aux auteurs plus expérimentés, nous restons à l’affût de tout ce qui fait bouger les lignes de la photographie. C’est peut-être là le lien entre les différents partis pris par Fisheye dans le magazine, sur ce site, et sur les murs de notre galerie.  La photographie sur le Web jouit d’une liberté essentielle. Tenter d’enregistrer cette énergie qui parcourt la Toile, c’est notre ambition.”
• Extrait de la préface de notre ouvrage fisheyemagazine.fr/photobook.vol.I

REVIEW BY HANNAH FRIEZER (Executive Director of the Center for Photography at Woodstock). C4FAP: Portfolio ShowCase  10

“One aspect I have always cherished about photography is the way some artists surprise us and broaden our perspectives. These artists make us see in new ways, and their images usually hit quite hard. Our gut reaction is immediate, though figuring out why or what might not be so simple.

When we look at the creative process, photographing a single successful image is not all that difficult. This applies to amateurs and professional photographers alike. Facebook and Instagram are full of one-hit wonders, and some are memorably nice. Even artists have those one-off images they just had to photograph. Developing an entire series, however, is a completely different matter. It not only requires exponentially more skill, but also real courage to dig deep into oneself to create a fully rounded, multifaceted project. Once the series exists, the real challenge of culling the coveted portfolio begins.

Think of a well-crafted portfolio as a delicious meal. The individual ingredients can be quite different, and they never need to blend entirely. Brought together, however, the meal (or portfolio) has to work as a whole. It needs the right nuances, the right flavor anchors, the right variety and the right level of commonality. It is easy to find advice on how to assemble a meaningful portfolio. The internet is littered with formulas of dos and don’ts. In actuality, gleaning a tight portfolio from a larger series is quite an art to itself, requiring skill, insight into the project and willingness to be objective at this stage even if the series is very personal.

In the case of this exhibition, I have chosen artists who skillfully held my interest from image to image. These artists had something noteworthy to say and did so masterfully.

Emmanuel Monzon “is on a path of his own. We imagine him walking the streets in quiet solitude. He observes, peeks around corners and stops in fascination at the most unusual, even banal places. His sense of discovery is infectious. And so we perceive the magic he creates from little more than gray concrete and blue sky as a new revelation. Every door, car or tree is seen in a new way within his mastery of composition and framing. The mystery of a doorway radiating with warm light from within suddenly becomes irresistible. A randomly parked car seems to anchor the world. As we follow along with him past block after block, we can only beg to please keep walking.”

PUBLICATION: PROFILES IN PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE - Link: Profile No. 7—Emmanuel Monzon

For Emmanuel Monzon, his transition from three-dimensional art to photography was the result of a conscious decision. He had used photography and digital cameras to aid his art, but did not consider himself a photographer, having only studied photography in the context of contemporary art. He was, at that point, a plastic artist who used cameras as a tool. But ten years ago, he wrote, he felt the need to “completely dive into photography” after completing a three-dimensional art project that involved taking urban-landscape photographs and reproducing them to 1:1 scale.

Monzon had no formal background in photography. Born in Paris, he attended L’École des Beaux-Arts to study painting, graduating with honors. He remained in Paris after his graduation, transitioning to the plastic arts after a brief period of exclusively painting. Some time later, he moved to Singapore with his wife, where they lived for until she received a job offer that required them to relocate to Seattle, where they have lived with their two children for six years.

Monzon’s move to America deepened his interest in the urban landscape. In Paris and Singapore, he had shot urban landscapes primarily to aid in his art projects. America’s urban landscape, however, had always uniquely stood out in his mind as “mythological and iconic.” (He told Feature Shoot last February that “living in the United States is like living inside a painting.”) In America, he could drive around seemingly endlessly to find subject matter, and it was only in America that he was able to start the long running “Urban Sprawl” project that has brought him his most recent attention from the photography world.

At first, he preferred to shoot at night while driving around the outskirts of Seattle, but the cacti and distant mountains that feature in some of his more recent photographs suggest that he had travelled to California and other parts of the Southwest. “I want to photograph the in-between state found so frequently in the vast American landscape,” he wrote in an artist’s statement published on LensCulture. “I capture places of transition, borders, passages from one world to another.” The Southwest, whose infinite sprawl and mandatory car ownership are globally notorious, is perhaps the perfect place to accomplish that.

For that reason, Monzon has often been compared to the New Topographics photographers of the 1970s. He himself cited William Eggleston and Stephen Shore as influences. Certainly, there are many similarities, but Monzon distinguishes himself in two ways, firstly by the emptiness he deliberately incorporates into his work. His urban landscapes are, for the most part, entirely devoid of people, even though they often feature the hallmarks of human occupation. Shore’s 1970s world, on the other hand, is almost always shown as busy and inhabited. Monzon’s world seems to answer the question of what a decidedly human-altered landscape would look like if humans were to disappear at least temporarily from it.

And, in that regard, I’m reminded of something he wrote in his email interview, which further distinguishes his work: “I see myself as a painter who works in photography.” In other words, Monzon has a painter’s vision — many of his photographs are reminiscent of the daytime scenes of Edward Hopper, another influence — but uses a photographer’s tools to execute it. A painter always chooses exactly what will or won’t appear in the frame. Photographers can do the same, but not by default.

I didn’t ask Monzon his techniques for keeping humans out of the frame, but, regardless, his photographs are not a perfect record of reality. (There is no shortage of human beings in Seattle’s suburbs or California’s sprawl, as anyone who’s driven on their freeways at rush hour can attest.) Even so, his photographs are a particularly revealing record of the non-places that typify American urban sprawl, like freeways and strip malls. Non-places, after all, are designed to make one forget that they exist as real entities. The absence of humans in his photographs of these spaces reminds us of their concrete existence and their artifice. His subjectivity, in a way, creates an even more objective portrait of urban sprawl.

Peter W. Coulson

ABOUT THE SITE:  Interview-based profiles of the best photographers working today.

Peter W. Coulson, founder and editor-in-chief, is a writer and photographer from Baltimore, Maryland and Los Angeles, California. He writes the profiles, manages day-to-day operations, and answers the emails. Peter’s writing has been published in NOICE. Magazine and his photography has been featured in advertising campaigns by the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company and on The Bmore Creatives’ Instagram feed. In February 2016, he co-directed the Park School of Baltimore’s production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.

PUBLICATION: CREATIVE BOOM MAGAZINE

Dreamy minimalist photography of an empty America by Emmanuel Monzon

17th October in Inspiration / Photography

In his minimalist series Urban Sprawl, award-winning Seattle photographer and visual artist Emmanuel Monzon loves to focus on manmade landscapes that are completely devoid of life. Quiet street corners, dusty endless roads and empty streets with blinking traffic lights – these all form the backdrop to his ongoing fascination with an empty America.

His photography is never re-touched, nor artificially built with sets or lights. They are "glimpses of life in absence of life" - as defined by Mauro Piredda, curator of a new exhibition at Private View Gallery in Turin, launching 4 November.

Roads, buildings, landscapes, the repetition of subjects always captured in a moment of void and emptiness, transforming the settings of his photos from physical spaces to mental dimensions. His work is simple and evokes feelings of loneliness yet is also so appealing. You can discover more on Instagram.

All images courtesy of Private View Gallery and © Emmanuel Monzon

Launched in 2009, Creative Boom is an online magazine that celebrates, inspires and supports the creative community.

Featured in BBC, The Guardian, The Independent, Swiss Miss, Colossal, My Modern Met, Design Boom, Design Taxi and Fubiz, Creative Boom is your dedicated daily fix for creative tips, inspiration and ideas.

A.L.U. MAGAZINE

It was about this certain tranquillity and the clear compositions, which caught my eye. While looking at the photographs it seemed that I could stand like this forever. Being astonished by the methodical perfection of the texture, form and colour the artwork of Emmanuel Monzon somehow embodies both: human loneliness and the urban American culture. Trained as a painter at les Beaux-Arts in Paris, Monzon verifies that there is no judgement in his artwork. Still there are some subtle feelings emerging from his mindful arrangements of forms and colours. Luckily Emmanuel had some minutes for us, so we could ask himself.

Emmanuel, tell us a little bit about yourself. What did you do after graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris? Where did you go and why?

After graduating from les Beaux-Arts in Paris, I stayed in Paris and after a short period of abstract painting, I went back to figurative art, asking myself about image and its reproduction. It translated into transferring images from catalogues and flyers onto enamel plates and glazed tiles. Then I moved to draw these pictures at their exact same real size – small formats – without trying to ensure that the drawing will be well represented. You can find some some impressions of my work from that period here. Then I transitioned to big formats by taking pictures of my own drawings, enlarging them to fit big formats. It was the beginning of my series around urban landscapes.

What do you miss the most looking back to your time in Paris?
What I miss the most is the ability to walk cities and stroll. I used to do that a lot as well as spend time in cafes watching people. You cannot really do that in the US. You always know where you go, from point A to point B as the mapping of the city is built as such as it is effective and mainly organised around cars.

How long did you live there?
I was born and raised in Paris and lived there for 40 years. What I don’t like is the traffic, some many choices and things to do that you cannot benefit from in the end because of the waiting lines and so many people wanting the same things and the famous Parisian attitude which is not a myth.

Do you travel home often, where is home for you now?
I don’t travel home often, roughly every three to four years. I prefer using my ”vacation time” to discover new places, especially in the US. Home now for me is anywhere and everywhere. After leaving Paris in 2006, I lived in Asia for seven years before moving to the US.

Yes, you are living in Seattle now…
I moved to Seattle almost six years go. After leaving seven years in Asia, my wife has a job opportunity here so we moved with the two boys.

How would you describe Seattle?
Seattle is a city a bit different from the rest of the US, with an important counter culture spirit (music, political and sociological movements). It is not a city easy to discover or appreciate at first, may be because of the climate and the amount of rain. Also contemporary art is coming slowly to Seattle, may be slower than in other cities but it is changing lately – a good example of that is the first edition of the Seattle Art Fair last summer which was a great success.

“Contemporary art is coming slowly to Seattle, may be slower than in other cities but it is changing lately – a good example of that is the first edition of the Seattle Art Fair last summer which was a great success”

After living in Paris and Singapore, what is different?
It is a much quieter city than Paris or even Singapore. People are very fond of outdoors activities; the urban culture is not as important. It is as diverse as Paris or Singapore in terms of social Mel potting which I like but Seattle likes to keep a low profile compared to Paris or Singapore always following or trying to set the latest trends. People here don’t care so much about their look which is definitely very different from Paris.

“In the US choice is limited despite the first impression of diversity, there is the same mapping of the suburbs, the organisation at right angles, this sensation of cloning”

How is the US compared to Europe. What do you miss in the US and what do you think Europe should adapt from the US?
In the US, what strikes is the infinite space all around, that nature is stronger. There is also the standardisation of the society organised around a same model of chains, office parks. Choice is limited despite the first impression of diversity, there is the same mapping of the suburbs, the organisation at right angles, this sensation of cloning.

“In contrast, in Europe, trust is not given to people easily. In the US, very early, children are taught to be confident. It translates into a society with a lot of curiosity which gives a chance to people with strong projects”

American people are courteous, very accessible, with a lot of humour and a positive mindset you can feel in your everyday engagements. The American society seems in turn conservative and in turn very pragmatic – legalisation of cannabis in some states. With a very productive counter culture despite the lack of state support. There is also the question of guns, which is so ingrained in this society which makes it unique and very different from Europe. Also very unlike France where people never ask themselves about how they can get educated or medically treated, the system in the US is very hard on low income people.

In contrast, in Europe, trust is not given to people easily. In the US, very early, children are taught to be confident. It translates into a society with a lot of curiosity which gives a chance to people with strong projects.

Let’s talk a little bit about your work, which is connecting primarily to the idea of urban landscapes and expansion. You studied classical art, but chose photography. Would you consider yourself as an photographer? And why is it your medium?
I don’t consider myself as a photographer. I use photography as a medium, it is only a passage for me to produce a piece of work which can be associated to a painting, which is my initial background. I always had a closeness with photography and the image and its questioning, on the concept of representation. With maturity, it became natural for me to use this medium while I still consider myself a painter.

“I like the idea of the in-between concept. I am in between photography and painting, and I shoot places in-between, cities and suburbs”

Would you say you turned away from painting or is there a transition between paintings and photography or do you still paint at home?
Even if in my youth, I mainly drew or painted, very quickly I gave up the act of painting or put a distance with the act itself to choose to reproduce images with different processes. I like the idea of the in-between concept. I am in between photography and painting, and I shoot places in-between, cities and suburbs.

How would you describe your photographs in three words?
Soft, repetitive and silent.

Do you prefer digital or analog photography? Which camera do you use?
It is not for me a question of preference. I belong to the digital generation. Without this numerical transformation, I would not have become a photographer. As a consequence, I don’t really have an attachment to the camera I use, there are just a tool for me even if I take time to select quality cameras.

There are no people in your photographs. What do you intend with that?
People are here in my photography, it is true that you can’t see them but there are always human presence through the traces they left on the landscape – highways, billboards, etc.

What is your favourite photographer of all time?
If I had to choose one, it would be William Eggleston for the narrative of his photography.

Which other artists do you like and why?
I am fond of Edward Hopper. I feel a closeness with his work, the way he talks about the silence. I also love Giorgio de Chirico for his uncompromising compositions.

Do you collect art? If so, what is hanging on your walls at home?
Yes I do. For example artwork from Catherine O’Donnell, Daniel Bonnal, Patrick Joust, Nora Lowinsky, Attia Bousbaa and Antoinette Ohannessian.

What was the most inspiring exhibition you have ever visited?
Interestingly, inspiration comes more for me from watching American movies or TV shows. Movies such as Take Shelter, Hell or High water and TV shows like True Detective, Twin peaks where the picture inspires me. I am not attracted to monumental or big piece of work which sometimes can emotionally overwhelm you and trumps the message. Monumental does not say it all.

“Interestingly, inspiration comes more for me from watching American movies or TV shows. Movies such as Take Shelter, Hell or High water and TV shows like True Detective, Twin peaks where the picture inspires me”

Which brings us back to in-between concepts again.
Your first solo exhibition “Enter The Void” was in Asia on view at Charbon Art Space this year. Why in Hong Kong?

I met the owner of this gallery when I was living in Asia, loved what she was representing, and we stayed in contact. That explains why in Hong Kong. There is a lot of energy in this city, you could compare it to New York for the US.

How would you describe the art movements in Hong Kong?
There are very specific art movements in Hong Kong, based on dissidence and anti-establishment positions. It can be explained by the history of Hong Kong, its connection to China and its near future re-unification. Hong Kong wants to keep its identity and art is one of the medium for that.

What projects are planned next?
I am working on my next solo exhibition which should take place toward the end of 2017 with Private View Gallery in Torino Italy.

Sounds great! Let us know when you are ready to share the first impressions of this project with us. Until then I wish you a lot of fun and success with everything coming next.

By Revan

About A.L.U. Magazine:

A. L. U. is an online magazine dedicated to the things we love: culture, art, fashion, music, literature, food, travel, love, friendship.

PHOTO ART MAGAZINE:

I’ve always been fascinated by images, be they from photography,cinema, advertising, TV shows. However, I am above all a plastic/visual artist(beaux-arts, Paris France). I started with painting (specializing in drawings and pastel colors).

For a long time, I reproduced in drawing ‘poor’ photography from catalogs, leaflets, with zero aesthetical aspects, at real scale and I have a lot of it. You may read more about it here.

My approach to photography comes from this time, which is linked to questioning an images, its representation, its reproduction, its broadcasting.

Anecdotally, toward the end of this period, I ended up exhibiting large scale photography of my own urban landscape drawings on tracing paper. More about this can be found in the article of a critic which headline was “what may be seen is not necessary what has been done”.

At the end of this process, my transition to photography became obvious. It took time with a lot of questioning and fumbling around before I found my marks.

I think that not attending any school of photography turned out to be ironically strength for my work. It allowed me to free myself up from     aesthetic, technical constraints as well as photography fundamentals. I was not afraid! Unlike what happened with my background in painting where I found myself often blocked by concepts, references to the masters of painting, and by an environment I felt was narrow minded.

From the start, I intellectualized my work less, I gave myself freedom which allowed me to find my themes, my style while keeping some of the principles I experienced in painting, that is the importance of the frame,lines of force, colors, the skinning of the image. I focused on the subject.

My plastic artist and painter background influences my photographic work. I am a photographer who paints or a painter who uses photography – I am caught in the middle, in an “in between state”.

This in-between state can be found also in my landscapes or urban sprawl series. I photography places of transition, borders, passages from one world to another, am I leaving a city or entering a new place?

My landscape pictures always feature human traces (billboards, trafficlights, poles, roads), a reminder of urbanity built by human beings but no human beings are ever shown in my pictures.

Living in the US, I have the impression to live in the painting, in the picture, being able to move around within this frame, to be part of this     American mythology which keeps reinventing itself.

I choose square frames because it focuses on the subject and allows me to distance myself from the photography. My humble purpose is that each of my picture tells a story, makes the viewers feel something, that something is“happening”.

In my artwork, there is no judgment, no denunciation, there is only the picture itself. If I could sum up the common theme of my photos, it would be about emptiness, about silence.

My pictures try to extract from the urban mundane landscape a form of estheticism.Where people only pass through, I stop and look for some form of poetic beauty.I like repetitions, I like series, and I like driving around.

Images featured here are a selection of different places which provide a representation of my current work where the name of the place matters little.

Preferences, methods and equipment, etc.: I travel a lot. I drive around a lot. I like to circle around the subject and map it.

I can stay a long time in a specific place and shoot it thoroughly multiple times. Sometimes the frame is obvious, but not always. I know that the subject is there but I cannot really see it so I shoot obsessively hoping to find a result when back at my studio. I can also come back to the same place many times.

Back to the studio – I sort out, I extract my storyline, I do the first step of framing (always using square frames), I choose the color that will  stand out for the series, I let the series rest for several days and I go back to it, repeating the same process over and over again.

Lately, I don’t discard the leftovers, I re-work them several months later and sometimes I can find new directions.

As I said before, I am using the same process as a painter. I think first about the sketch, the draft. Then, I work my picture like a painting on a canvas, I select the colors.

Throughout this process, a series emerges, articulated around its own story, its place, and its mood.

My goal is to reach my own reality. I understood with the experience that real does not exist, it’s only a question of interpretation.

However, I don’t use photography software, no Photoshop, no Lightroom,just the basics of balance and colors. I like printings on big scale watercolor paper (30 x 30 inches) to be exhibited in art galleries, like a painting.

I shoot simply with a camera, as in street photography. I have a Panasonic Lumix GM1. I changed the lens to Leica DG Summilux 25mm, and a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX8 with Leica 35-100 lens.

I need to have it handy, ready to shoot. I don’t have sentimental attached to my camera, I only hope for efficiency. Most of the work will happenin the studio, especially since I have a rather love/hate relationship with my camera knowing I am a poor technician. I belong to the digital generation.Without this numeric revolution, I would not have had the chance to be in this discipline.

My upcoming project(s)/events : I’m preparing for an exhibition in Europe with the art gallery which represents me (Private View, Italy); an      exhibition in Asia for the art gallery in Hong Kong (Charbon); 2 photo books,respectively called “around my neighborhood” (around the 4 seasons), “urban sprawl Las Vegas, emptiness”

Influences and favorite stuff : As a young adult, I always admired painters such as Giorgio De Chirico (his geometrical figures, little to no        human presence, something appeasing but also oppressing), Edward Hopper for his static compositions and his true American landscapes, also Mike Bayne. Other photographers include: Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Bill Owens, Robert Frank, Gregory Crewdson, Gordon Parks, and Joel Meyerowitz.

From the cinema and literature, I am influenced by movies of Scorcese,James Frey (Morning After), The Twin Peaks TV show, True Detective, Take Shelter, Hell or High Water, etc.

Editor P.A.M.