…trees, bushes…
The night is the last unknown country. Electricity hunts it? It leaves, surrounds, stays quiet. The silence of the night. With Weegee we know that the fiends never left the cities and their lights. The night is the country of fear.
…arbres, buissons... In this series of photographs, Grégoire Cheneau has been bold. With only his flash, he faced the fears of his childhood. He walks in the darkness, the memory of the Blair Witch Project in mind. The trees and foliage believe they are protected by the night. Here they are caught in their bareness, in their intimacy, like a women surprised while bathing.
Grégoire’s photographs are not only nightly and enigmatic images, they also show what can’t be seen. Beyond simple retinal pleasure, they are x-rays of our memory, as quoted by Lamarche-Vadel, writing) about Joseph Beuys.
Grégoire Cheneau created images which, in the manner of the Proustian madeleines, connect us to our lost legends. Empty images suddenly giving life to many invisible creatures. We are no longer watching Grégoire Cheneau’s photographs, they are watching us.
Jean Yves Pilet
