ARCHIVE: EXHIBITORS 2009
Jean-Marc Clairet
Adresse
Jean-Marc Clairet
28 rue Eugène Renault
F-94700 Maisons Alfort
France
Tel. +33 (0)612 42 90 76
www.jeanmarc.livegalerie.com
La photographie amène Jean Marc Clairet sur des voies insoupçonnées.
Depuis son premier portrait fait sur une amie de classe à l’âge de 19 ans il n’a jamais cessé d’avoir le plaisir de se perfectionner, allant aussi bien vers le reportage humanitaire que la mode ou la nature morte. La diversité qu’offre ce moyen d’expression lui procure la satisfaction d’être activement témoin de son temps.
Aujourd’hui à 44 ans, il travaille essentiellement sur son parcours. Une nécessité vitale… « Pour être mieux avec l’autre ». Alors il tente de retracer en image une enfance atypique, qui se passait entre le Cambodge et le Vietnam.
Souffrant de l’asthme sévère dès l’âge de 2 ans, dans un environnement familial pas moins chaotique, il a commencé à lutter avec la maladie au détriment d’une enfance scolaire et sociale normale.
Son éducation passait par le développement de l’écoute du « souffle » et dans les moments d’apaisement, l’observation de tout. « Les Pensées de Bouddha «, son premier sujet de cette démarche nous parle de spiritualité mais surtout d’un héros d’enfant, car mille fois il a entendu l’histoire de Bouddha qu’on lui racontait comme on raconte ici l’histoire de Robin des Bois.
Quant à « Féminité », c’est encore un autre hommage…En observant la mise en beauté de sa mère le matin avant de partir au travail, lui procurait sans nul doute les premiers éléments d’un apprentissage fait de couleurs et de nuances. Une grâce magique qu’il retrouve dans chaque model qu’il maquille, stylise et photographie à présent.
« Les Ponts », complètent ce travail de reconnaissance. L’architecture des ponts lui évoque une forme de libération, qui nous conduit vers la voie de la liberté ; telle une île reliée au continent. L’isolement ne permet pas le développement : pour être bien avec les autres, il convient d’aller vers eux…les ponts nous y emmènent aussi.
La curiosité, le sens de l’observation et son goût pour l’imaginaire, ont sans doute contribués à son développement, cependant Jean Marc Clairet photographie avant tout pour être en accord avec vous et moi.
Jean-Marc Clairet
“Feminity”
As a young boy growing up in Ho Chi Minh City, Jean-Marc Clairet felt enraptured watching his mother doing her hair and makeup before going to work in a jewellery store. The moment she’d walked through the door, he’d start messing around with her eye-shadows and lipsticks himself. Severely asthmatic, he was unable to attend school and was often cooped up in bed most of the day. These moments of play highlighted his childhood and spurred his interest in beauty. Ever since taking his first photograph at the age of 20, he has styled all his models: applying their makeup, dressing their hair, and selecting their jewellery and clothes for the shoot.
“When I took my first photograph with a friend’s camera, I didn’t know anything about photography,” he says. “I didn’t even know there was a film in the camera! But I knew how to apply makeup and instinctively use light. I always know how I want my models to look. I couldn’t have photographed any of them if they hadn’t let me put their make-up on!”
Born in Cambodia to Vietnamese parents, Clairet’s family moved to Vietnam when he was an infant,and then moved to France when he was 12. The fact that his paternal grandfather was French facilitated the relocation.
Now based in Paris’ southeast suburb, Clairet, 41, made his first foray into photography in his early 20s. Managing to sneak backstage at catwalk shows, such as Martine Sitbon’s last collection for Chloé, he snapped supermodels like Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Carla Bruni, and observed the makeup artists transforming their faces. Back then, though, he was in two minds about how to forge his career. For a while, his love of photography took a backseat as he opted to make a stable living working nights in a Renault call centre. But the desire to take pictures kept gnawing away at him. So in 2003, Clairet enrolled on a photography course at Centre Iris in Paris. Determined to become a recognised photographer, he hasn’t looked back since.
His series on femininity and nudes, featuring several of his female friends, were taken at his home and is a tribute to his mother, who brought him up on her own. The dark, smouldering eyes and scarlet lips are a tribute to her glammed-up look in the 1970s. With titles like Marlene Desire, Bolly Vamp, Manga Glam and Fauve Rain, his portraits have been equally inspired by the cinema, art and fashion. As Clairet explains, the bright colours sometimes denote “a kitsch side,” while referencing the Fauvist and Expressionist movements. His close-ups include one taken in his bathroom of an immaculately made-up, gorgeous brunette, with drops of water bouncing off her long, wavy hair.
Yet the strongest images are his faceless, blurred nudes, showing projections of slides partially dressing a naked body. “I don’t like nudity for nudity’s sake,” says Clairet. “I like the nude when it’s dressed by light in a way that is closer to painting. I think that Bonnard has an approach towards painting and the woman that is extraordinary. And I love the spirit of femininity in Klimt’s paintings too.”
In the photograph entitled Paris on Her, an overexposed, night-time shot of the Eiffel Tower clothes a woman like a corset; traces of amber, orange and red gleam like embroidery. Other images show golden leaves, dappled light and branches of trees flashing onto her back. Like lace lingerie, this impression of semi-nudity peaks the erotic aspect.
For his shots of falling, autumnal leaves and creeping ivy, Clairet strolled along the river Marne near his home. He then used the projection of these nature images as the source of light for his nudes. “I wanted to evoke the sensitivity of femininity through the seasons,” he continues. “And I wanted to give a cinematic ambience.” After developing his camera film, Clairet scanned his new slides on to his computer and slaved away on Photoshop, enhancing the tones of the colours and the visual contrasts.
Femininity and nudes encompass just one area of Clairet’s interests. His previous series, Thoughts of Buddha, comprised photographs of a Khmer-style Buddhist statue in the Musée Guimet, Paris’ museum for Asiatic arts, blended with ones of trees, ducks, New York and other diverse scenes. The duality of “East meets West” of these overlapped, hybrid images reflects Clairet’s mixed cultural background. However, his primary aim was to convey the Buddha’s philosophies and teachings. For instance, spotted, red streaks on the side of the Buddha’s face in one of the images alludes to illness, while chipped blue paint peeling off a piece of wood alludes to ignorance. After being mentioned on the Musée Guimet’s website, Thoughts of Buddha has been exhibited in several Parisian galleries and restaurants.
Moving forwards, Clairet is half-way through producing a series about sex. “The message of this subject is the demystification of sex with regards to the moralistic attitude of certain religions and societies. I am working on everything that is sexual without showing the sexual act,” he adds. To illustrate his point, Clairet hands me a slide showing what looks like sperm (but it’s actually egg white mixed with milk) trickling from what looks like a penis (but it’s actually a vibrator) into a champagne flute. His idea is based on representation. Once he’s completed this series, he intends to start photographing the landscapes in his suburb.
It’s clear that Clairet is endeavouring to be audacious and wide-ranging, and wants to create multiple aesthetics rather than one identifiable style and vocabulary. As he puts it, “I think photography offers a huge range of artistic possibilities.” And he fully intends to experiment with the extensive scope.
TEXT BY ANNA SANSOM FOR EYEMAZING (www.eyemazing.com)
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