Céline Gèrmes

I have stopped making photographs because of the digitization of the medium: its immediacy, the precise control over the image, and the removal of an element of surprise have contributed this development in my work. For me, to choose the best picture out of one hundred no longer had value.

I was searching for a new link, a way to bridge the gap between time and space in order to lead to the pictorial field. I don’t trust the organization of figurative symbols and I don’t feel obliged to create new ones. I aim to explore the relevance of a seminal existence: the moment when a picture appears in the darkness of the lab. In a way though, I turned back to the traditional photographic practice. I focus on the moment when a picture settles down into its own fragility, the gap between absence and presence.

Most of the visual material I collect (historical books, newspapers and the Internet) deals with this uncomfortable balance. It can be testimonies of a historical aspect or some private memories extracted from daily life.

Both my paintings and drawings relate to time on many levels. I work in order to create an unsettled image which is somehow in motion. I paint to stop this flux for a while, to analyse and bring it into another temporality. My long and laborious process attempts to erase the pictorial gesture. By creating a kind of manual print, I attempt to reach a photographic neutrality. I want to embrace the first image, l’image-source.

This counter point, in a radical and naive way fights against the image as entertainment; its sophisticated nature, its relationship with pop culture. I have no belief in that culture. On the contrary, I promote the possiblity of a disappearance.

- Céline Gèrmes