The repetition of the familiar allows the details of the captured image to breathe, granting the audience to drift upon layers of images in search of beautification. That is the gift of French photographer Jean François Rauzier, the pioneer of the “hyperphoto” technique. As a whole, the works of Rauzier may ooze out chaos and at times come across aggressive to the eye. However, the beauty in these gigapixeled worlds dreamt up by Rauzier, lies in their almost crazed construction, where each dismantled image is re-stitched together in harmony.
Understanding Rauzier requires capturing the essence of digital photography and the heights it has reached especially through “hyperphotography”. Troubled by the photograph’s inability to captivate its audience as lengthy as movies, Rauzier utilizes the means of digital photography to distort and duplicate images in order to create his intricate landscapes. Adapting this “hyperphoto” technique to his works since 2002, Rauzier’s works are 10,000 times the resolution of a normal photograph, which contains 600 to 5.000 pictures.
Often a photographer is faced with the dilemma of choosing between a close-up and a wide-angle shot. This is precisely what Paris-based photographer Rauzier eliminates. His works accommodate both. At large, the work exudes a presence of a single image, as one moves closer to dramatic details of the structures or a hidden lion behind one of the bushes springs out at you.
This second solo exhibition of Jean François Rauzier at Galeri Nev Istanbul, contains works from three of his series: “Arches”, “Ideal Libraries” and “Andalusia”, each of which allows us to take a glimpse of his various utopic realms. All images are testimony to his vision beyond what is available to the naked eye reaffirming his ability to build photos of unprecedented detail. Whether it is the enormous futuristic garden scene created in “Jardin Abyssal”, or juxtaposition of the marbled walls with natural components in “Alhambra”, Rauzier always manages to transform daily reality.
Starting off his career in the fashion and advertising industry, Jean François Rauzier shifted his orientation to artistic photography in the 2000s. Since then he has held solo exhibitions at The Los Angeles Foundation Annenberg, Moscow’s MOMA, and The Palais des Beaux-Arts of Lille, Museu de historia Nacional or Rio and soon at the Brasilia Modern Art Museum. He is the winner of the 2011 Eurazeo prize, 2009 APPPF Award in the Architecture photography category and 2008 Arcimboldo Award of digital photography. Dubbed as a “digital Braque” artist, Rauzier’s keen eye for detail has been recognized by the likes of art critic and curator Damien Sausset, who has described Rauzier’s works as “re-enchanting the real”.