NOIRS was presented to the Bordeaux public from June 20 to September
9, 2018 in the art gallery of the Relais & Châteaux
Saint-James in Bouliac, as well as from April 24 to 28, 2019 as part of the 10th International
Multihull Show.
We are particularly pleased to
present this exhibition again in Bordeaux at Valérie Coraini's
gallery
From November 5 to 25, 2020 - Every day (except Sunday) from 2pm to 7pm
where NOIRS will once again honor light
and colors…
Due to the health crisis, the exhibition has been postponed to 2021.
Black is the origin. With the appearance of light, different BLACKS
were revealed, multiple, sensitive, fragile but with such
presence! BLACKS born from the deprivation of
light, BLACKS reflections of non-reflections, a kind
of anti-light that reveals colors, lights and
materials. They emphasize, reveal, make us aware of
riches so close. Magical, simple, everyday.
We took as a starting point material, spatial realities conducive to the imagination; one might be tempted to
recognize skins, minerals, wine cellars, roads, mountains, water, sea,
stars, charcoal, technical fabrics, bolt or dancer. But do we
really need these eclectic identifications? They are only
starting points, initializations, suspensions of
time, like still images masterfully illuminated by
the BLACKS…
We are often close to abstraction, approaching the boundary
between dream and realism in a curious, exciting
and complicit approach. By combining imagination and reality, reveries and
origins merge.
Because light is our brush, we wanted to
continue playing, dreaming, searching even further… With our
desire to pierce holes for light.
BLACKS
Black is not sad! It is beautiful because through its self-denial,
it allows us to perceive, to see and to discover light and
colors, and thus material.
In our culture, the relationship between blacks and colors is not as binary as one might think. If absolute black absorbs all wavelengths, it would be characterized by an absence of color, but reality is quite different, much more surprising!
Very rarely pure, black is inseparable from colors. It reveals micro-details, tendencies, influences, so that each more or less luminous point makes us perceive one or several isolated or dominant colors, because it leans on the material, accomplice to the light. In this respect, black is not unique, it is fundamentally multiple.
But this multiplicity remains mysterious: we readily speak of "deep black" and curiously never of "light black": if it is deep, is black not also a revealer?
Such an incursion into the worlds of BLACKS is a fun, sometimes complicated but fascinating quest… To make light and colors burst from black, one must be attentive, curious, challenge preconceived ideas and question oneself.
Before starting our actual work, we must research and experiment, go back, move forward and not let ourselves be defeated.
At the birth of each image there is a real basis, regardless of its origin, what matters is the attraction that the final image arouses, its power of seduction, to take us elsewhere, into a world that each person can imagine according to their own dreams and imaginations. We simply hope that this exhibition transports visitors elsewhere, gently, and lets them enjoy the incredible and surprising riches of BLACKS…
Co-founder of Claris Image Builder - Photographer
"When Nicolas Claris decided to invest in a camera at the very beginning of digital photography, his commitment, the rigor of his methodical approach to this art, and undoubtedly also the need to quickly obtain acceptable results made him almost immediately a Photographer.
From this first generation of shots, one could note technical mastery, understanding of his clients' wishes, and formal academicism stemming from his respect for his peers.
With a solid foundation, Nicolas quickly set out to open his mind and lens to subjects other than boats: shadows and reflections in a Spanish house, architecture of curves and lights by Frank O Gehry, pebbles and wild grasses, bolts and mechanical parts were photographed like Hollywood stars: always with respect, sometimes with love, but also with astonishing creativity: "treat small things like big ones" served as a leitmotif for Nicolas's second period as a photographer: the transition to Artist.
With a humble, almost self-effacing approach, he became a major signature of altruistic photography, one that places itself entirely at the service of the object being photographed. It is with the same generosity that he offered to accompany the Watever team on a trip to Bangladesh, from which he brought back images of incredible humanity. In love with colors, the ephemeral (and what is more ephemeral than a wake on the sea or the passage of a sailboat?), he adds the notion of passing time to his photographs, as in this sublime series of dishes by chef Nicolas Magie which he photographs in the gardens of Saint-James 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 today allows him to approach all subjects with that blend of competence and respect which now makes us look at his work with joyful pleasure, far from all solemnity, ready for any surprise.
Who has forgotten the tables set on the decks of boats under construction? Those photos have become classics, but the playful shift they revealed already announced the talent of Nicolas Claris, who went from photographer out of necessity to an essential contemporary artist."
Bruno Belmont - Bénéteau Group
In 2008, Sinar entrusted him with a HY6 for a year of intensive testing under extraordinary conditions for such equipment. Becoming addicted to medium format (large sensors), Nicolas Claris became a Pentax Ambassador in 2012.
Complete biography
Claris Image Builder - Video director
If the wide shot is something we all know how to do — more or less, we who take too many images at every turn and confuse wide shot with overview — detail is what is missing from the eye drowned (in images) 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 blank page, raindrops on a train window, a pier by the sea, the hand of a sculptor, a pebble becoming jewelry, the flexible foot of a dancer, the gaze of a Bangladeshi fisherman, jute fiber becoming a boat — all things, women, men filmed by Romain Claris — move us because they show us, through detail, a larger, richer, more complex world than we believed, so that, freeing our gaze with his, we can see even better…
Jacques Dubuisson, screenwriter, director
Romain Claris has been making short films since 2000, selected or awarded at numerous international film festivals.
He graduated from the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français in 2005 and then created the video department of the advertising agency Claris Image Builder in Bordeaux.
He is the director of the new international one-minute and short film festival Bordeaux Shorts.
Currently in development: a creative documentary of about fifteen minutes to be co-directed with Jacques Dubuisson. "Les comptes de la lune" offers another history of the invention of numbers and calculation.
