Black is the origin. With the appearance of light different BLACKS have been revealed, multiple, sensitive, fragile but with what presence!
BLACKS that are born from the deprivation of light, BLACK reflections of non-reflections, a kind of anti-light that makes us discovering colors, lights and materials. They emphasize, reveal, make us aware of so close richnesses. Magical, simple, daily.
We took as starting point existing material or surfaces propitious to the imagination, one could be tempted to recognize skins, minerals, cellars, roads, mountains, water, sea, stars, coal, technical fabrics, bolts or dancer. But does one really need these eclectic identifications? These are just starting points, initializations, suspensions of time, like frozen frames masterfully highlighted by the BLACKS...
We often get close to abstraction, approaching the border between fantasy and realism within a curious, exciting and accomplice mood. By associating the imaginary and the real, dreams and origins do merge.
Because the light is our brush, we wanted to go on playing, dreaming, looking even further ... drilling holes for the light.

NOIRS

Black does not mean sad! It is beautiful because by some kind of self-sacrifice, it allows us to perceive, to observe and to discover the light and the colours, therefore the matter.
In our culture, the relationship between NOIRS and colour is not as binary as one could be tempted to think.

If the absolute black absorbs all the wavelengths, it would be characterized by an absence of colour but the reality is very different, much more surprising!
Very rarely pure, black is linked to colours.
It reveals micro-details, trends, influences, so that each point shining more or less makes us apprehend one or more isolated or dominant colours, because it leans on the material, accomplice of the light. As such, black is not unique, it is fundamentally multiple.
But this multiplicity remains mysterious: one speaks easily of "deep black" and curiously never of "light black": if it is deep, the black could not it also be revealing?
Such an incursion into the worlds of NOIRS is a fun quest, sometimes complicated but fascinating... To bring out the light and the colours out of the black, it is necessary to be attentive, curious, to stir the received ideas and to question oneself.
Before starting our actual work, it is essential for us to carry out studies, trials and error, it means to go back and ahead, it implies to never let go.
At the base of each image there is a reality, no matter what is its origin.
What matters is the attraction that the final image arouses, its power of seduction, to take us elsewhere, in a world that everyone can conceive according to one's own dreams and imaginations. We just want this exhibition to take visitors elsewhere, nicely and gently and let them enjoy the incredible and surprising richnesses of NOIRS…

After lasting months of research, questions, doubts and enjoyment, this is the moment of truth, where we see one's work in place, ready to offer itself to the public eye ...

The moment of truth has arrived, the guests also. Many, despite the festival of music, despite a football game of the French team at the World championship, guests comment and prove to be polite, very very! A magnificent reception at the Saint-James in Bouliac where the chef Nicolas Magie added to our images his magistral preparations ... in black!
Here are the « official » pictures shot by our friend Sabine Calès.

26 prints 140 x 105 cm. Prints signed, limited edition (30 copies), superb printing by Lebolabo. Order a print.

NICOLAS CLARIS

Claris Image Builder - Founder and Photographer

When Nicolas Claris decided to invest in a camera at the very beginning of the digital era, his commitment, the rigor of his methodical approach to this art, and probably also the need to quickly obtain acceptable results have made him, almost immediately, a photographer.
From this first generation of shots, one could retain the technical mastery, the understanding of the wishes of his customers, and a formal academism resulting from his respect for peers.
Having solidly built his base, Nicolas was very quickly committed to open his mind and his objective to other targets than boats: shadows and reflections in a house of Spain, architecture of curves and lights of Frank O Gehry, pebbles and crazy grasses, bolts and mechanical parts have been photographed as Hollywood stars: with respect always, sometimes love, but also an astonishing creativity: "doing the little things like the big ones" served as a leitmotiv in the second period of Nicolas as photographer: that of the passage to the state of Artist.
With a humble, almost self-effacing approach, he has become a major signature of altruistic photography, one that puts itself entirely at the service of the frame in view. It is with the same generosity that he proposes to accompany the team of Watever, during a trip to Bangladesh from where he will bring back pictures of an incredible humanity.
Lover of colours, ephemeral (and what more ephemeral than a wake on the sea or the passage of a sailboat?) he adds the notion of time that passes in his photographs, as for this sublime series of dishes of the chef Nicolas Magie that he photographed in the gardens of the Saint-James Hotel & Restaurant in Bouliac, or when he follows the seasons in châteaux of the Bordeaux vineyards.
Eclecticism is not an art in itself, but it gives Nicolas a freedom of tone, a creative force that allows him to address all subjects with this mix of skill and respect that, today, makes us look at his work with joyful pleasure, far from gravity, ready for any surprises.
Who has forgotten the tables set on these boat decks under construction? These photos have become classics, but the playful shift that they unveiled already announced the talent of Nicolas Claris, passed from a photographer by necessity to a contemporary artist.
Bruno Belmont - Bénéteau Group

In 2008, Sinar entrusted him with an HY6 for a year of intensive testing under extraordinary conditions for such gear. Becoming addict to medium format (large sensors), Nicolas Claris becomes Pentax Ambassador in 2012.

Nicolas Claris' Biography

ROMAIN CLARIS

Claris Image Builder - Video Director  

«If a wide angle shot is what we can all do - more or less, we who have taken too many pictures at every turn and confused wide angle with an overall view - detail is what is lacking for our image-drowned eye with which we look at the world.
Then, only then the fold of fabric in a sewing machine, the stroke of a brush on a white page, the drops of rain on a train window, a pier by the sea, the hand of a sculptor, a pebble becoming a jewel, the flexible foot of a dancer, the look of a Bangladeshi fisherman, jute fibre becoming a boat, all these things, women, men filmed by Romain Claris, move us because they allow us to see, starting with the detail, a wider, richer world, more complex than we thought, so that, freeing our eye with his, we may be able to see better yet...»
Jacques Dubuisson - Screenplay writer, Director.

After a travel to Niger in 1995 where he joined the film crew of the feature film Imûhar, Romain Claris worked on photography and then began to make very short films in 2000. He obtained in 2005 the State diploma from the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français, and then joined the advertising agency Claris image builder as a video manager. Alongside his agency work, he continues to make personal films, selected or rewarded at international film festivals. In 2017, the international film festival Pêcheurs du Monde entrusts him with the presidency of the Professional Jury. He has been co-directing the medium-length fiction film Voici que la nuit, a free adaptation around the novel by Yasunari Kawabata Nemureru Bijo, coming soon in 2018.

Romain Claris' Biography

Under the General Management of Marie Borgel, the four men at the helm of the Saint-James restaurant are Nicolas Magie: Head Chef, Sébastien Bertin: Head Pastry Chef, Adrien Champigny: Chef Sommelier and Fabio Rambaldi: Restaurant Manager.
Former restaurant, the 18th-century farmhouse that now houses the Saint-James was transformed and enlarged in 1989 by Jean Nouvel. The architect then imagined four pavilions, connected to the original building, to create the rooms of the hotel. Pavilions that this native of Lot-et-Garonne inspired by tobacco drying. The architect even made sure to preserve their rusty appearance, weathered, flaking, not to distort anything. His other choice: open the farmhouse and the pavilions on the surrounding nature. To invite you to have lunch, dinner, sleep, lie down, relax among the vineyards. A realization as atypical as aesthetic, now classified in the 18th-century heritage by the Ministry of Culture.
Nicknamed the "balcony of Bordeaux" because of its panoramic view, Bouliac has long attracted gourmets, gourmands and art lovers. Already after the war, people came to this village nestled above Bordeaux to have lunch, dance, go green and enjoy themselves. Since 1989, one of the most beautiful 18th-century farmhouse in Bouliac has been transformed into a hotel and restaurant.
A chic and confidential address called the Saint-James, named after the famous street of the historic centre of Bordeaux..

"Apart from the very high technical quality of the work of Nicolas and Romain Claris, what we appreciate most is the way they appropriate our requests, with a real ability to adapt according to the topics to be treated, including our DNA, to realize photos and films in phase with our needs. Working with them is a real pleasure."

Marie Borgel
CEO
Relais & Châteaux Saint-James Bouliac
3 Place Camille Hostein - 33270 Bouliac
05 57 97 06 00
Email : reception@saintjames-bouliac.com
Site Internet : saintjames-bouliac.com

For all its offset printing jobs, Claris chose Print. The photographic work is sublimated by the quality and the care given to the printing of the clichés by PRINT partner of this exhibition.
Nicolas Brunaud and his wife Muriel Malabat have run this family printing house in Bègles for many years. With a dual activity (Print Dorure for labels and Print System for publishing) with a team of 34 people they offer a service and printing solutions that add real value to creative works. They made guidance, demands and details care, their religion, which allows them to prevail today as the printer reference for the Wine and Spirits Industry of Bordeaux.

Claris and Print have been collaborating for more than fifteen years in printing advertising brochures and luxury editions. A film was made by Claris during the making of a book telling the story of a fabulous thirty-meter sailboat built in Bordeaux by Construction Navale Bordeaux. It shows how confidence and shared passion for uncompromising quality, brings to an extraordinary book.

«I enjoy Nicolas Claris' images, they are not easy to print because they are complex under their apparent simplicity, there is no chance in them. To reproduce them you have to be able to wonder…
Where are we? what time is it ??? evening ??? morning ??? moon or sun? but how does he do it, and have you seen the framing? I do not particularly have the soul of an artist or experience in art, but for the first time I took the time to watch ... And it is me that surprises the most ... I also like the man because he "knows what he wants", he says he is never at the end, that we can still try, go further. He is the guardian of his images, he keeps a close eye on them under the press, at every output. So then discuss with him on the subject ... He's not an easy man, but passionate!.»

Nicolas Brunaud

The invitation cards and the catalog of this exhibition will be printed by PRINT.

Watch the movie "CNB 100 Chrisco the making of"

Print
143, avenue du Maréchal Leclerc
33130 BEGLES
+33 (0) 5 57 35 47 47
Emails: m.malabat@print-dorure.info
n.brunaud@print-system.info
Internet site: print-system.fr

Founded in the 80s, Incidence is No.1 in France and in the top 5 worldwide.
The quality of the sails and service provided are recognised around the world… but its strength and difference can be found in its complete mastery of the entire process, in-house, from research and development to the finishing touches. “Home-made” produced by experts.
Incidence is an exceptional sailmaker. From the outset, it has chosen to control the entire chain of design and manufacture of its sails. From R&D to the finishing touches, from offshore cruising sails to sails for Superyachts, Classic Yachts or offshore racing machines, everything is done in-house.
Nothing is left to chance at Incidence Sails: the design, the choice of fabric, the cut, the creation by hand and often customised for all the finishing touches. Everything is conceived, designed, made, controlled and checked on the sites of the Incidence Group.

Why are we supporting NOIRS?
Innovation, research of excellence, material, aesthetics ...
Nicolas and Romain Claris's work shares the same values than those of "Incidence Sails" sailmakers. Their expertise is continuously used to research ways for producing better and even more beautiful results, pushing the boundaries and unleashing the minds.
Supporting the NOIRS exhibition therefore makes perfect sense.
It is also the continuation of a long-standing partnership with artists with whom we share this quest for beauty, quality and innovation.

Philippe Touet
Directeur commercial

INCIDENCE SAILS LA ROCHELLE
8 rue de la Désirée
BP 43052
17031 La Rochelle Cedex 1
Tél : +33 (0)5 46 41 83 52
info.larochelle@incidence-sails.com 
incidence-sails.com
Incidence Sails is member of Superyachtfrance.