La Forêt Argentée

Nature has long been the subject of focus for

many photographers since the advent of the

medium. Blindly, technological schemata have come to fascinate, void of an engaged or philosophical detachment: the essence of the act of “to paint

with light.

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With La Foret Argentée, the essential returns, invoke s a quintessential quiet, the observer brought to contemplation, the processes of creation impact, the works created upon exquisite archival paper prove emblematic. Josee Charbonneau has worked with a primary locus to achieve an aesthetic movement which denotes the causal rupture with the aforementioned primal “fascinus”, to surmise an aesthetic tradition that might yet endure contemporary speculation.

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Nature is rendered beyond landscape and document due to the indelible poetically symbolic of what is in allusion. Silver filigree lends great texture, denoting her mastery of print-work, upon the image, enriching the static imagery of these creations upon archival paper. The border pales in contrast, surrounded by the luster of silver, fresh or oxidized simulacra of time’s passage. Barthes wrote extensively of the “punctum whereas, Lacan endeared by the representational sub dual of the conscience, acts in deference: La Forêt Argentée appears born of the two theoretical positions. The image fixed, we have the instant which leads to the “death” inherent of Barthes posit, and with the progressive textured layering, the representational endures.

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The singular power of the ultra-high contrast works by the pioneer, Eugene Atget, may come to mind, whose “trees” remain sculpted from ether. The work of silver process self- sublimated demarcates that rather than sculpt with shadow and light, reminiscent of the aesthetic lyricism of Andre Kertesz, the act of photography may yield insight into a condition wherein concept engenders itself.

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Art Critic Rajath Suri

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