The Gilbert Dufois gallery is very happy to reserve its Parisian space for the French photographer Hégémon Chaignon. This exhibition entitled "West Coast", presents the series "Marinella", "Les Corsaires" and "Côte des Basques beach". Hegemon has already been exhibited at the gallery, during a solo exhibition in 2014. His work revolves around the concept of the immediate memory of happiness. Capturing memories when they are born, photographing retinal persistence, halfway between reality, memory and dreams. His latest series are thus photographed with a pinhole in order to reproduce this retinal persistence and his memory, halfway between the blur and the sharpness between the photo and the painting. A pinhole camera is a very simple camera that allows you to get an image by letting light pass through a tiny hole that acts as a lens. This technique was invented in Persia around the year 1000, then called "camera obscura" (or dark room), it was used a lot by painters, especially from the Renaissance. In 1514, Leonardo da Vinci explains: “By letting the images of illuminated objects enter through a small hole in a very dark room, you will then intercept these images on a white sheet placed in this room. [...] but they will be smaller and overturned. In a way, combining a pinhole and a digital camera is pure anachronism. This historical paradox makes it possible to bring photography closer to painting by obtaining the very particular rendering of a technically clear photo with less detail, less sharpness, skies and skins that seem to have been painted with a brush.
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