Here’s a focus on five of the readers’ favourite discoveries, presented last February on Fisheye’s website: Frédéric Martin, Alexander Herrmann, Maxime Antony, Farid Shukurov and Michel Gantner.
1. Frédéric Martin
Fear, and hopes. “Here is what my daily life is about. The project L’absente was born almost by chance, following a picture taken on a winter’s day: my partner, already sick then, was walking along a wall, blind. As I was looking at her, I realized that this was the exact metaphor of our life: the wall, nighttime, the cold…”, Frédéric Martin recalls. The 45-year-old teacher is also the author of a poignant series dedicated to his wife, suffering from borderline personality disorder – an affliction causing depression, anorexia and morbid thoughts.
© Frédéric Martin
2. Karl Alexander Herrmann
After training to be an architect, Baden-Baden-based Karl Alexander Herrmann turned to photography. He discovered the medium through his uncle’s black room. Though the advent of digital cameras first attenuated his interest in the practice, the mass production of images over the last decades eventually inspired him. “I simply needed to find the appropriate method”, he tells us.
© Karl Alexander Herrmann
3. Maxime Antony
In 2018, Maxime Antony, a French photographer based in Paris, travelled to Mongolia. An ideal destination for those questioning the link between men and time. An encounter – or rather an introspection – with an artist-traveller who created the series Le temps suspendu (Time suspended, ed.)
© Maxime Antony
4. Farid Shukurov
“I consider myself to be a visual creator. I am nicknamed the Photoshop Magician”,Farid Shukurov
says. Born in Azerbaijan, the artist discovered the art of montage randomly, by learning graphic design for his industry. Today, he lives off this unexpected passion. Inspired by a colourful vintage – especially green and pink tones – he produces surreal and unsettling portraits. Farid Shukurov cuts, slices, digs into his models’ skin, and melt their faces off, leaving in their trail iridescent patches. A “creepy, strange and dreamy” collection, as repulsive as it is alluring.
© Farid Shukurov
5. Michel Gantner
“Both of my parents are painters. I grew up in a world where aesthetics was a daily preoccupation. Graduating from an art school thus seemed unavoidable”,
Michel Gantner tells us. After studying Fine Arts in Mulhouse and Art Deco in Strasbourg, the artist turned to imagery, becoming a freelance photographer in 1998. Deeply influenced by his upbringing, he captures his surroundings with a certain sensitivity. Inspired by the advent of digital tools, he has developed a mixed practice, merging modern technologies with ancient creations.
© Michel Gantner
Cover picture: © Frédéric Martin
