solo show at Hopstreet Gallery
Rivoli building
Brussels BE
Zoom in. The camera rests low on the back of a man who is holding a cigarette in his hand. What do we know about this scene? The man seems decently dressed, with his striped shirt neatly tucked into his marine trousers. His leather watch and golden wedding ring suggest a traditional domestic life. Let’s say he’s in his fifties. We have a notion about our protagonist, but what is happening here? His hand is holding a burning cigarette, probably a Winston, in a protective and shiel-ding gesture. The bright sun is beaming, so he is definitely not sheltering his cigarette from the rain. Is he hiding it from sight, as if he doesn’t want to be caught smoking? Or is it the sand-like substance on his hand that no one is supposed to see, as if this could give away the crime that preceded this scene?
In Domestic Flight, the viewer is not confronted with traces of what has been. Rather, each scene allows us a glimpse into the action of the story Camille Picquot is unfolding. Released of its burden of proof, photography can now fully be applied to its new purpose: to visually narrate and suggest a fictional story. In her artistic work, Picquot is equally at ease with photography as she is with film. Applying and mixing common practices of these media, she never places one above the other, but rather reinforces them both. In Domestic Flight, Picquot does not shy away from adding a playful cameo of herself in the series, possibly hinting at Hitchcock’s famous appearances.
The photographic language is apprehensible: it seduces through clear compositions, contrasting colors and vivid details. But there is always something amiss, an unusual viewpoint or a distressing detail, converting it into a disquieting scene. The images become enigmatic without falling into the trap of closing themselves off from the viewer. Instead, they invite a sharp reading and dissection. They give away as much as they conceal.
Rein Deslé
group show based on Alfred Döblin’s book
& curated by Olivier Gevart
at ETE 78
Brussels BE
solo exhibition for Hopstreet Window
curated by Valerie Verhack
Rivoli building
Brussels BE
Colour and composition are the first elements to be addressed : objectified as in a painting, torn from the concrete. Colours are flat ; zones are opaque and collapsed with simplified volumes and a smooth grain. But the gaze is sensual and embodies the sharp edges of reality.
One would be almost surprised to see anything indistinct. But this clarity is soon contradicted: micro events trumpet macro meanings. It is a myth in the making with its key figures, its temporal stages, in short, its own system. “Nothing escapes, everything howls.”
The images overflow, are an invitation to get lost. There are multiple entry points in each one and multiple interfaces between the pictures. They are as many-layered as they are open to many interpretations: the focus depends on the viewer. The human – and all the madness that serves us as touchstones – provides the focal point. There is derisiveness in the gaze but there is also a strange tenderness. And there is gravity. These are the images of a photographer who experiences rather than interprets. The perspective comes from the gut, not the mind.
Each scene seems to evoke a duel between myth and the real world. The line between fact and fiction blurs at the moment the shot is taken: ordinary people and actors come together in chaotic staged scenes that seem to await the unexpected. If this is a story, it is told from a middle ground.
Camille Picquot is a photographer and video- grapher: the still image led her to the moving image. Her body of work examines the present through the lens of sensation: the power and poetic singularity that characterise her photography are also found in the films that she writes and directs.
Sol Dezcal
.TIFF Magazine 2016
FoMu, Museum of Photography
Antwerp BE
group show curated by Wim Waelput
at KIOSK Gallery
Gent BE
Domestic Flight – Alluviums
Gent BE
group show curated by Barbara Cueto and Bas Hendrikx
Marres Current # 4 at MARRES
Maastricht NL
Domestic Flight
Cloître des Franciscaines
Deauville FR
Domestic Flight – Alluviums
Gent BE