January 2012 - Interview for the Italian Art magazine "Image in Progress"
Shaking the soul
Interview with French artist Jean François Lepage, photographer of sophisticated and disquieting images, vestals of a mysterious surreality.
The photography of Jean-François Lepage, a genial artist and a Parisian, reproduces finite and decadent traits. Female souls are models in a world whose contours are drawn by the human pen. Paradoxical stage sets echo an elegant and sophisticated fashion, which shows its infinitesimal plasticity, capable of invading the eyes with matter and fabrics but of preparing the mind to the surreal. Lepage’s art is complex, as it transcends the world of fashion, touches upon graphics and painting, calls to mind cinema to finally reach the philosophy of existence.
There is a “je ne sais pas quoi” that is disquieting in the “finiteness” of those static, lonely bodies lost in environments that go beyond the stage set to describe the solitude of the human soul. Artificial lights, irealistic, “wan” colors stress the repetition compulsion of a human fashion that enhances the senses in hopes of a free association of ideas.
Photography is an authentic vestal, priestess of the possible, sophisticated, visible but which wants to offer a glimpse of the door to the impossible.
Lepage’s images are far from the categorical imperative of reinventing life but encourage the observer to free the imagination.
The concept of woman as an inspirational muse, custodian of the mystery of seduction is abandoned in favor of transformist bodies, without sexuality, headless. “Avatars” that allow access to a mysterious Surreality, sinister and magic at time which is suggested as a possible safe haven.
This are post-modern, unobvious images; they are subversive, nearly troublesome, never natural yet so fitting in all historical periods.
Lepage evades the “politically correct” mentality and plays with fragments. He cuts directly from the slide or the negative using Staples to fix the pieces together. Serialized faces and bodies, as if we were dealing with a non-identity, a quasi-identity, as if to justify that the human being is a never-ending work in progress.
A treasure hunt that wants to overcome the border between genders, times, languages to reach something surprisingly universal, undoubtedly less realistic of that which is seen but paradoxically truer. Aware of his great talent and his ability to represent complexity in a sincere, nearly poignant way, we are going to ask Jean-François Lepage a few questions to explore the imagination behind his work…
The subjects that appear in your photos are clearly static and have the power to call to mind hidden worlds, to touch the viewer in a way that triggers an unstoppable stream of consciousness. (Is this what drives you and also your ultimate purpose?)
“Mind hidden world, yes….I try to capture and show what could happen if you stay for a fraction of second between two space time, looking inside yourself and see really who you are.”
Your images seem to touch the history of art, is it your intention to call to mind the surrealist esthetics?
“Surrealist certainly and many other influences of course, I had the chance to be born in a artistic family, my father was working in a publishing art book company spending time with artists and my uncle was art director of magazine. Since young I’ve been in contact with artists, went to museum and I believe this was an important part of my life to open my mind into the world of creativity in general.
The surrealist period of the 20” is for sure an important step of history of art and I think particularly regarding photography, it is the first time photography starts really being recognized as a art medium. 20 years before this period I believe, to my point of vue, that Georges Melies movies has been one of the key for movies and later photography to break into the art world.”
We seem to recognize the hand of the deconstructivism of the 1920s and 1930s, to what extent did this movement influence your art? Are your photos inspired by Claude Cahun, the revolutionary and subversive transformist artist whose original work began to show clearly the concept of “stage set” before the “performance”?
“I have discovered the work of Claude Cahun quite recently, shame on me, I believe she might have influence the work of Cindy sherman in some way as I was impressed of the similitude when I saw his photographies.
When I was younger my favorite photographers were reporters or “street photographers” like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eugene smith and Robert Frank. Then I had discovered many other inspiring photographers, like Diane Arbus, Ansel Adams, Weegee and for sure in fashion, Rigard Avedon, Irving Pen, Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin. But my influence are at first coming from movies and painters rather than photographers.
The approach of the spanish painter Velasquez of 17th century, I just love the honesty and sincerity of his portraits. The work of English filmmakers Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, Russian Sergei Eisenstein, Italian Vicente Minnelli and the German Carl Theodor Dreyer had influenced me tremendously since I was young and they still do.”
What is the meaning of “Cuttings” in your interpretations? What do the notes left on your photos wish to communicate?
“My cuttings give me the possibility to reach a other world when I feel it’s interesting for the final result of the image and words come to my mind spontaneously, there is no particular message I want to left to people, it just have to be like this.”
Do the people that you photograph want to be “Avatars” in a world that repeats itself and for this reason become plastic? Or is there an ode to life behind this appearance?
“Ode of life certainly, facing death sometimes, certainly also.”
The choice of “wan”, artificial lights suggests film stage sets. To what extent did cinema influence your subjects and your stage sets?
“As I said previously, some movie directors had influenced me a lot but the way I use Flash in my image it’s not a reference of film stage. I've started working this way in 2001 after a long break not working for magazines, I was more interested to discover something I didn't explore to much in the past, shooting in outside locations. This was for me a perfect way to play with the sun and flash, creating a different approach of lighting a subject and reaching a particular atmosphere.”
Why do you often choose to trace the contours of the human body with strokes that resemble the “Indian ink” used by a visionary man?
“Yes I believe there is some hidden forces around us and inside us that are unexplainable and I often feel that when I make my images. Drawing on the photographs of someone help me to understand who they are and maybe who am I.”
Looking at your photos I feel the ground shaking under my feet, they touch me, they provoke me and often leave me in front of my solitude. Do you fear loneliness?
“Not really, in fact I feel different often than other people, but aren’t we all? I feel often lonely and I’m used to.”
I thank the artist and the man, aware of my being before an instinctive and reasoned art, capable of creating full involvement and motivating. Behind that glaring light in that barren field, a mute, still, not-very-human body reveals that somewhere something is happening. Lepage’s fashion troubles the soul and his photography grasps in one shot all his art.
