A system of mirrors is set up in the middle of nature in order to capture the surrounding space according to chosen orientations and directions. It concentrates what is behind the observer (the distant) while at the same time merging with the reality of the field of view (the near) facing the camera.
This device disrupts spatial reference points and traps images of the environment, which merge into a new arrangement. The scale of things is also altered, since the mirrors have raised distant spaces to the same level as nearby elements.
This confrontation of spaces creates formal ruptures of material, light and texture, like an aggregation and fusion of interpretations: is it a decoy that conceals reality, an illusionist montage, or quite simply, the reality of the landscape and of the mere apparatus in front of the camera?
The intention of this work is to delegate to these mirror objects a capacity to make an image by destructuring the logic of representation and revealing the possibility of inventing new spaces and new territories.
These mirrors have random shapes of different sizes and dimensions. They are glued to wooden supports that embrace their exact contours. The purpose of the plywood is to amplify the stratification of this glass element, which becomes a flush surface that reveals the reality reflected. In the same way as the landscape recorded, this reality acquires a factuality through the mediation of this ephemeral construction, shifting but fixed by the photographic shot.
These constructions reflect a natural disorder in which the elementary laws of physics, gravity and perspective are disrupted. These mirrors cut out space, its elements, the mountain, the vegetation, the river, the trees, the horizon, the sky...
The visual information captured by these mirror-objects is modulated according to their orientation in space and their ability to take their place in an overall landscape.
These mirrors are objects that have a concrete effect on the surrounding nature, splitting and merging the field of reality. Some of the mirrors form a material barrier in the torrent, raising the question of whether it is the object that diverts the water or the reflection of the water and its image that are the real partitions of this spatial construction. A new world merges and reinvents itself.
The power of photography is delegated to these objects in a random and unpredictable way. The transformation and reconciliation of scales creates a new reading grid that questions the singularity and fragility of nature.
Patrick Tosani, October 2024
"Trois éléments", Galerie In Situ-fabienne leclerc,Grand Paris
3.11-21.12.2024