Benoît Fournier

Copyright Benoit Fournier
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Benoît

Fournier

Water memories | 2011-2015

Happy passersby with their bodies wet; salt, iodine and always the indispensable blue of the sea at night. Thus, sometimes earth, sometimes water, Benoît Fournier’s real and imaginary worlds are created. They are all real if we think that they are produced from a sealed box that permits immersion in a liquid element, creating the potential for a new perspective. And they are unreal because water in movement will always be an epiphany. Even when he does not know what the final result will be, the use of the semi-submerged camera with a view both below and above the surface provokes an intuitive state of sensory experience. So the water has the central role, uncontrollable, its own master and, in this case, challenging constantly the eye of the photographer – what will the next image be? It is always a game between a sacred element and the external world – the photographer’s world. The environment and its inhabitants become part of this game. The artist just has to unite them in one unique moment. It lives and dies daily with each submersion to be born again dripping. Benoît Fournier, with his camera inside a waterproof box, permits entrance into the liquid element to build a world where the spirit overcomes material issues. This is where the second epiphany arises – the illusion/daydream/reverie/. Text by Diogenes Moura. Exhibitions: 2015 | Cultural Center CEDAE, [Water memories], Rio de Janeiro, curated by Diogenes Moura, Brazil. 2014 | Alliance Française Gallery, Prix Photo Web, [Land of water], Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 2014 | The Center for Fine Art Photography [Black and white 2014 exhibition], Colorado, USA. 2014 | Museum del Fiume, [Water Memories], Biodiversity Festival, Nazzano, Italy.

Benoît Fournier

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Copyright Benoit Fournier
© All rights reserved.