Chaumont-Photo-sur-Loire 2022/2023

This fifth edition of Chaumont-Photo-sur-Loire brings together four artists whose love of nature has honed their patience, whether they decided to consider it as a mental construct by focusing on the landscape as a whole or as the sum of infinitely unique parts by collecting samples in the natural environment.

Some of these images are wide-angle shots while others crystallise around a single detail, providing the beholder with a sometimes macroscopic sometimes microscopic vision of a mountain or flower. 

Seen through the prism of photography, nature is set within a frame, much like a painting in many respects. Working in the same way as a painter, the photographer selects a piece of reality in order to idealise it or turn it into fiction, playing on colours, concealing the setting and anything that might serve to date their image... Whenever memory becomes hazy, the imagination takes wing.

Chaumont-sur-Loire’s regular visitors are well aware of the Domain’s commitment to beauty and the respect due to nature. Each edition of Chaumont-Photo-sur-Loire is therefore an opportunity to draw everyone’s’ attention to the preciousness of our natural environment, while celebrating outstanding photographic practices.

 

Such respect is a major component of Michael Kenna’s body of work. This internationally renowned photographer rejects the term “take”, emphasising the “give” aspects of his work instead, harvesting (so to speak) what nature so generously offers. His images draw in the landscapes that he introduces us to, always in the same small format. An unapologetic observer, he came to the Domain’s Historic Grounds to complete the series of trees set to be presented in the Château. In a very different register, Denis Brihat’s imposing flowers, fruits and natural details transfix us. They emerge from their white backgrounds like apparitions, breaking free of any natural environment. Scarcely recognisable, they strike poses, aware, living sitters. A true artist fully committed to his art and a great teacher, Denis Brihat creates “photographic paintings”, fruits of a quest that is both aesthetic and philosophical. They will be exhibited in the Agnès Varda Courtyard.The images created by Éric Bourret are also highly individual. They come from two series, one being 

Dans un tout autre registre, les fleurs, les fruits et les détails naturels en majesté de Denis Brihat subjuguent. Telles des apparitions, ils émergent du blanc et s’affranchissent de tout milieu naturel. À peine reconnaissables, ils s’adonnent à des poses, sensibles modèles vivants. Immense artiste engagé dans son art et grand pédagogue, Denis Brihat crée des “tableaux photographiques”, fruits d’une quête tant esthétique que philosophique. Ils seront exposés dans les espaces de la Cour Agnès Varda.

Les images proposées par Éric Bourret sont aussi d’une grande singularité. Elles proviennent de deux séries, dont l’une Arbos, totalement inédite, issue de ses promenades en bord de Loire et l’autre Primary Forest de ses marches dans les îles de la Macaronésie et des forêts primaires de Chine et de Finlande. Si le photographe arpente, des mois durant, la planète, c’est pour mieux saisir le mouvement de chaque territoire exploré. “La marche photographique rend lisible l’expérience du paysage traversé”, a-t-il coutume de dire. Chacune de ses images accueille une expérience physique, celle d’un œil et d’un corps qui accompagnent la lente, mais inexorable révolution de la Terre. Ses grands formats seront présentés dans le Château.

Les photographies de Arbos , on exhibition for the first time and taken during his walks along the banks of the Loire, and the other entitled 

 

Time and silence reign at the intersection of these four worlds. A plural time – suspended or recovered, captured or in action – and a single silence, a silence of life. Two photographic ingredients that provide the beauties of nature with an opportunity to let themselves be contemplated.