DELPHINE CHANET
PRESENTED BY CLAIRE JACQUET
At the Penninghen École Supérieure of design, graphics,and interior architecture, Delphine Chanet’s year as a student of Franck Horvat, fashion photographer, would be decisive for her interest in the history of photography and her desire to become a photographer herself. Although her degree supervisor was the Polish poster artist Roman Cieslewicz, she found that photography was her true form of expression and began her professional career as an art director at advertising agencies. Going behind the camera as a photographer and director, she soon made her mark in children’s fashion, becoming one of Milk magazine’s signature photographers. Inspired by photographers whose approach takes the min to the heart of daily intimacy, such as Helen Levitt, William Eggleston, Luigi Ghirri, and SarahMoon (for her fictionalized, sublimated approach to reality),Delphine Chanet also draws from literature (LewisCarroll above all) or the cinema of Godard (his unconventional framing, his light, his colours), embracing the playfulness of childhood and the moody sensitivity of adolescence. She photographs within her circle of intimates and beyond as well: her daughter often, her friends, and, most frequently, strangers met by chance.
Delphine Chanet seeks out and captures the intensity of their personalities, each subject’s uniqueness which cannot be reduced to a printed image—and there lies the challenge! Within her strictly composed images, whether studio or location shots, she reveals a sense of narrative that sets the various protagonists in relationship to themselves and others; a desire to capture the tableau vivant of the human comedy in its mostvivid fragments. Colours, light, simplicity, and radicality are her structuring elements.
Claire Jacquet
Prints by Atelier Surexposés, Paris.
Thanks to Imag’in Productions,Studio Rouchon, RVZ, Atelier Surexposés,and ElissaCastelbou.
Foodshark, 2012. Courtesy of the artist.
Joseph, 2013. Courtesy of the artist.