LA FORME

« In La Forme, this circle of image transfixed on the wet collodion emulsion is all that remains of an approach where the subject, the model, fades away to reveal the essence of photography: light, and optics. In this total absence, the sun, the moon, a star, a planet appear; it's impossible not to notice.
For once, the process and the material take center stage.
On the glass plate, only the process and the optics draw and form these spheres.
But the circle is always there…It’s been an obsession for years now.

La Forme echoes a very early photograph, where nothing appears but the light of a blurry horizon. It also resembles the essence of life, conjuring the primary cell, the powerful sun, source of heat, light, and life, where it all begins, therefore logically appears in what looks like the « ultimate photograph ».

A friend skillfully suggested that my approach, by dispossessing the image of a subject, by capturing only the trace of a natural element, light, is naturalism taken to its paroxysm and seems to me to be a stance that counters the fetishization of representation. »

Éric Antoine about his series. « La Forme »