“François Raison's Cyanotypes assume a floating, dreamy and melancholy look, preferring the blue of the sky or the sea to the blackness of the shadow. They are a way of seeing, a look as tactile and sensitive as possible on the objects and the world that come close to us” (Camille Saint-Jacques). A photographic exhibition by François Raison to discover at Deyrolle from March 29 to May 11, 2024.
More than a fascinating cabinet of curiosities, Deyrolle is an institution whose universal language is based on the Nature-Art-Education triptych. Strong in a discourse where the Living and the preservation of Biodiversity take their place, Deyrolle presents exhibitions by artists for whom Nature is an inexhaustible source of inspiration. From March 29 to May 11, 2024, Deyrolle hosts “Cyanotypes”, an exhibition by François Raison where the very particular blue of these photographic prints – like a red thread between the works – highlights the very essence of the Living.
The look of François Raison
The photographic project is long-term, as far as I'm concerned. The oldest image in this series of twelve dates back almost thirty years. But I knew while making it that it was destined to be seen one day, and that in the company of others - to come. Like a bouquet of flowers, the image is only worth if you can offer it. The other photographs came randomly from travels and from the way of looking. That said, not just “at random”, but also through patient will.
Taking a photograph is not that difficult: you just need to be patient, and then honest, spontaneous, involved, nothing that requires great material sacrifices. The material doesn't matter. No matter the location. All that matters is the quest for the truth of the gaze. What is complicated, however, is finding a link between the images: what defines the persistence of this look. We can then seek help from others, and that is what I did. By helping my gaze with that of the artists who preceded us, and waiting for the human connection to begin. This was the case in the meeting with Louis Albert de Broglie, who gave me the idea of a series on nature, and thanks to the work of Julie Laporte in photographic printing, in this case cyanotypes.
In art, working alone is vain for me. I need the eyes of the partner on stage, in writing the reader to come, in music the chords of friends, and for this photographic project I needed the desire and the will of the Prince Gardener, the beat of his gallery, from the hands and eyes of the one who was going to make the prints. Everything came together, and justified the choice of photos: nature, the image and its form, the place where it is shown.
An art gallery is beautiful. Sometimes it’s even luxury. Deyrolle is better. It's a gallery, that's all. What's there: art, nature, dreams, the past, and the future of childhood. An image, for it to be seen, must prove itself. So much the better. It is a place where not only art admirers pass, there will be the onlooker, the teenager who dreams of a shell, young and old in search of gifts and the unexpected, tourist, old regular. What better way to present your personal images: if you see them, it’s because they have passed a virtuous test, that of comparison to natural beauty, and if you want them, it’s because they are up to par of the cultural richness of the collections on display.
The place, the Deyrolle gallery, is ideal for me because of the link it offers between nature and culture. Because my gaze - and therefore my images - are articulated similarly: nature is fascination by nature, and my gaze is fascinated, but just as much naturally as culturally. My eyes resting on a landscape, an animal, my ear listening to the songs of the world, are those of the “cultured animal”. I would not know how to look, to listen, without it being, through this physical act, the creation of an image or the recognition of a melody. I open my eyes, and it's not just the vision, it's the creation of the image, the transcendence of nature into an object thought and felt, cultural. And it is the song of this other animal, man. Each image is my voice, the cry of the cultural animal. We must seek the reconciliation of these two beauties, nature and culture. Like two companies rediscovering their friendship.
François Raison’s technique
The photographs exhibited are cyanotype prints of film shots. That is to say that all the images were printed on film, then printed using the cynaotype process: patented more than a century and a half ago, it consists of brushing a sheet with a citrate solution of iron and potassium ferricyanide, then exposing the negative to sunlight (this is sunstroke). The process involves the small number of prints, and the almost unique character of each one. Chemistry gives the work its blue color (blueprint). I chose to leave the brush marks visible around the photographic image, which forms a sort of frame in itself. Everyone is free to frame if they wish... for me the frame is already in the print, that is to say the image of the artist created by the gesture of the printer.
