“Retrouvailles”

Factory Phnom Penh (FT Gallery)

21^st Nov – 12^th Dec 2024

‍

A photograph is a vision, not a reproduction. Or, if it reproduces something, it is the emotion created by something seen in a glance and that it permitted to be catch. This is what each photo of Jean-François Spricigo seems to tell us, he who never ceases, in his daily life as well as during his travels on Reunion Island, Mayotte or Guyana, to observe nature. He questions himself as much as he questions us about the kind of relation we have with it and about the way we consider it and learn from it, or not.

This son of an Italian father and a Belgian mother, raised in Belgium, trained in photography then in cinema and image, also expresses himself through writing, radio and theater, with great freedom.

Even if some of his photographs can be in light colors, he favors a kind of black and white at the opposite of realism and that could be described as literary. He does not tell a story but with his evocations, most of them involving animals, many ones very elegant, but which can also appear dangerous, he knows how to provoke wonder, knows how to tell us gently that we must look attentively and respectfully. And wait for the image to come to you like a gift that he shares.

With him blurs, shadows, backlighting are not effects but a way of touching us and also asking us what we really see.

Among other distinctions, he received the prestigious Prix Nadar in 2023for his book Nous l’horizon resterons seul.

Jean-François Spricigo's work is exhibited at FT gallery, Factory Phnom Penh.