INTIMACIES - Vancouver Art Centre, Albany WA - opening 18h30 Wednesday 20 Auguste 2014 - Art On The Move

RICOCHET © christophe canato

Curated by participating artists Christophe Canato and Christine Tomas; Erin Coates, Thea Constantino and  Justin Spiers will present audiences with photomedia art that delves into unconventional notions of intimacy.

INTIMACIES - Alcoa Mandurah Art Gallery WA - opening 18h30 Friday 13 June 2014, guest speaker Christophe Canato Artist-Curator - Art On The Move

© JUSTINE SPIERS - ARTERIAL LINE I

Curated by participating artists Christophe Canato and Christine Tomas; Erin Coates, Thea Constantino and  Justin Spiers will present audiences with photomedia art that delves into unconventional notions of intimacy.

RICOCHET - ANNA PAPPAS Gallery Vic - 29 April 31 May 2014

Christophe Canato Ricochet 2013,
metallic paper, archival pigment print

Christophe Canato’s photographs of boys are not so much portraits as psychological portrayals of the developmental stage that follows infancy and precedes adolescence. These human subjects are complemented by photographs of inanimate forms and structures: dead animals, a bivouac den, a handkerchief containing a tooth and a couple of buttons. Objects that fascinate the mind of a boy but retain little interest for the busy grownup. In this way the artist sets up a dialogue between the adult viewer and the half-remembered period of childhood his photographs evoke.

Shot against a black background with lighting reminiscent of that illuminating the subjects of Renaissance painting, the images are rich and dark. This marks an interesting counterpoint to his previous body of work, Women of Jerusalem, which presented elderly women using high-key lighting and a pure white backdrop. Where that work cast an almost forensic eye on aging as metaphor for the tolls of responsibility and cultural expectation, the new work emerges from an enigmatic obscurity that suggests the uncertain promises of things yet to come.
   
These photographs are brought together under the title of Ricochet, alluding to the uncertain trajectory of pre-p ubescent boyhood. But, as the artist knows from his own upbringing, in France ‘ricochet’ also refers to the pastime of skimming flat pebbles across a still patch of water; a trick that defies the expectation that a stone should always plummet to the bottom. It is these ideas of uncertainty and mystery that bind the series together.

Text by Alasdair Foster, curator, writer and consultant working on projects that build intercultural connections, especial in the Pacific region. He was the founding director of Fotofeis, Europe’s largest photo festival in the 1990s, Director of the Australian Centre for Photography (1998-2011) and Managing Editor of Photofile magazine (1998-2008).

GESTURE (video):

http://www.christophecanato.com/christophecanato_Gestures 28-3.mov

Anna Pappas gallery

OCULA - May 2014

OCULA.COM 

RICOCHET © christophe canato

ART COLLECTOR - publication April 2014

RICOCHET © christophe canato

Christophe Canato’s evocative photographs trigger memories of one’s childhood. This rich series of darkly lit portraits and still life photographs, each piece brimming with a sense of uncertainty and mystery, delves into the psyche of childhood and looks at the fascination and imagination held only within the mind of the child.

Born in France in 1966, Canato grew up in an artistic family, his father a talented painter. At seventeen Canato successfully enrolled in the Beaux-Arts School and went on to complete a Diplôme National Supérieur D'expression Plastique in 1989. Canato lives and works in France and Australia.

Art Collector publication