How to describe the details: of a bush, a thicket, or a waterhole? André Pharel has his answer and demonstrates it brilliantly. Inspired by the Comtat Venaissin and the Sorgue, born in 1956 in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, he photographs: plants, leaves, details, like that water droplet that stretches lazily and gives us reflections of light in a garden. Sunrays play in a thousand bright sparkles in a forest. A river, here the Sorgue unfolds, a rippling serpent.
His lens captures and fixes what the human eye cannot see, too confined by the vast scope of its vision, it becomes impossible to spot the detail, the little nothing that gives a place or a landscape a whole other dimension, and André Pharel thus opens this new prism for us.
André Pharel won a competition in 1979 organized by the magazine Photo. From this initial success, he meets Willy Ronis, which becomes somewhat of a catalyst, and our young photographer abandons his teaching career to devote himself to photography. In 1987, he publishes a first book about his village: Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.
Very quickly, his photos evolve, some speak of abstraction, in fact, André Pharel wants to express transparency and reflections. Another book should soon be published. It is about the village of Lagnes in the Vaucluse where he currently resides.
“Traversées”; the exhibition offered to us, a wonderful gift for those who can appreciate the work of this photographer, is a dreamlike journey. The photos, almost paintings, even watercolors, show us the soul of things. The grove appears to us as both real and unreal. The photographer realizes this illusion in the laboratory, for it is not enough to take a photo; one must know how to extract its essential essence.
This vague line between what is and what seems to be is the guiding thread of this exhibition. André Pharel invites us through his photos to reconsider what we see with reality. The human eye would thus be deceptive.
The best way to see would then be to close one’s eyes, but this exhibition invites us, on the contrary, to open them. An exhibition not to be missed, photos, paintings with a subtle blend of styles for the pleasure of the senses and the mind.
Thierry Jan
