Francine Desmeules

OEUVRES SUR PAPIER PHOTOSENSIBLE
02.13–03.09.1997

This exhibition is structured around images that bear witness to conditions pushing the boundaries of photographic norms: photograms, overexposed shots, blurred images, and—by contrast—others that are sharp yet gray. What I seek to convey here is that precarious point where the image is on the verge of either vanishing or appearing—allowing for a constant oscillation between these two poles.

The subjects include landscapes, details, and spaces—whether open or enclosed. Drawing on this nature, I aim to explore human nature, demonstrating that the gaze we cast in an attempt to capture it is never neutral; it transforms the subject and gives it a voice.

Through overexposure, I aim to render the image in the process of being revealed—or barely revealed—hovering close to the blank page, or to the absence or overwhelming presence of a light that burns and blinds. With blurred images—forms that are not quite distinct but tend toward clarity—I want to evoke the delicate texture of the film grain as the image’s contours soften; the image seems to recede behind this grain, yet remains identifiable when viewed from a distance. These images are juxtaposed with others where the dynamic is reversed: gray images that reveal themselves only upon closer inspection.

By bringing these images together, I seek to create tension in the process of recognizing the familiar—to open a rift in the known, a moment of disorientation at the very boundaries where the concepts of landscape, materiality, and reference begin and end, and where the image itself begins and ends.

Text: Francine Desmeules