Jean Yves Cousseau

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Orbis pictus: With his photographs, Jean Yves Cousseau transforms his photographs, erasing any notion of temporality in order not to risk being confined to a nostalgic posture. He chooses to flay all his photographs and to oxidize many of these prints. Subjected to this assault, the photographs undergo metamorphoses that reinforce or alter the meanings they carry: rust, stains and scratches are inscribed on them, reviving them by instilling a new memory and contributing to the work’s reflection of time.

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For the artist, photography is not only recording reality but working upon the medium. Isn’t this an approach worthy of a contemporary ecologist who is devoted to his environment?

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Like the photographic impression, these images of the artist with their evocative and poetic titles remain engraved in our memory without our being able locate them in space and time.

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The exhibition will be accompanied by a book co-edited by art3 Plessis Editions and Orbis pictus, enriched with poems by Alain Madeleine-Perdrillat, especially composed for his long-time friend, and an afterword by Gaëlle Périot-Bled, who knows how to define all the facets of the oxidation with subtlety and precision.

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Photography and poetry will cross paths throughout the month of June at the Orbis pictus gallery, for a unique artistic voyage.

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Jean Yves Cousseau

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French artist Jean-Yves Cousseau lives and works in the greater Paris area. Born after attending the École des Beaux-arts de Nantes.

For many years, his artistic approach has been mainly linked to photography, with occasional incursions, explorations, and experiments, over the course of exhibitions, in fields as different as video and installations.

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His personal writing is as much about the photographic subject, its representation and immediacy, as it is about the alteration of the photographic work itself. By subjecting his photography to prolonged stays in water, to bad weather, making it shift from one state to another, modified by organic deposits or by chemical phenomena (oxidation, erosion of the sensitive emulsion…), he reveals the working of time; time putting its mark on it, endowing the work with a new memory.

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His photographs are often assembled, creating polyptychs or installations, intimate or monumental, in which elements such as old mirrors, broken windows and various materials guide us towards an increasingly sensitive and penetrating approach to the work.

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Author of several works and artist’s books in collaboration with other writers, Jean Yves Cousseau has been exhibiting his works in France and Europe for over 30 years. He has also worked as a scenographer and has provided the graphic design for numerous museum catalogues.

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