Diffraction 4, 2018. Épreuve numérique 66 cm x 66 cm. © Yann Pocreau

Diffraction 4, 2018. Épreuve numérique 66 cm x 66 cm. © Yann Pocreau

Yann Pocreau

In the past years, my research has been focused on the narrative contributions suggested by the presence of light when staged in specific places. In my most recent projects, I put forward not only traces of a physical collaboration between my body and space, but also that of light and its presence as a subject. Having now for some time evacuated the human presence of the photographic content, even opted more often for other types of mediums than the photography, I developed a series of intervention or work leaning on the artificial light, its materiality and its essential contribution to my photographic thought. The questions of the materiality of light, reflection and colors have taken over the notions that have been part of my work so far. Thus, some of my projects had the particularity that they allowed the projection machine, in the light of it, to become the raw material of my work. White or colored, referring to the film, the light bulb, then the obsolete Kodak color chart, these light interventions led me on new, more exploratory, more abstract tracks.


Yann Pocreau was born in Quebec City in 1980. He lives and works in Montreal. In his recent research, he is interested in light as a living subject and the effect of it on the narrative of images. He has participated in several Canadian, American and European exhibitions, including Quebec Gold, presented in Reims, France; Exercises of empathy, at Espace Bortier in Brussels; Expansion at the UQAM Gallery; Out of Grace, at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery; at Montreal’s Mois de la Photo in 2011, at the Under the Radar exhibitions; the New Visionaries and Paperwork in New York at Le Fresnoy, France for L’image rôde (Louise Déry curator) and the 5th Biennial of Sinop in Turkey. His work has been commented on in various magazines and his works are in the collections of the National Bank of Canada, Hydro-Québec, the City of Montreal, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montreal, the Museum of Fine Arts of Montreal, the Joliette Museum of Art, in the Loan of Art Collection collection at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec. He was in 2018 long listed for Quebec for the Sobey Art Award and was finalist for the Louis Comtois Prize.