The pool as a metaphor
From the magazine Schnappschuss No. 58
Karine Laval has a weakness for swimming pools and their shimmering water surfaces. Her photographs are reminiscent of those of the old masters Henri Cartier-Bresson or William Eggleston: color is a means of expression for her. In her series "The Pool", she takes us into the naive atmospheres of swimming pools and tries to reactivate memories from our childhood. by Alexander R?hl
Karine Laval is a French-American artist born in Paris and now
based in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from CELSA - Paris Sorbonne in France, where she worked in the fields of communication and journalism. She studied photography and design at the School of Visual Arts and the New School in New York. Her artistic practice encompasses photography, video and installation/projection.
Karine's still and moving images challenge the perception of the real world. Quite often they act as a bridge between the world we live in and a surreal, dreamlike
dimension. The distinctive use of deliberate color manipulation helps to further question the relationship between representation and reality. Karine combines analog techniques and digital technologies to explore the transformative power of the camera and examine the process of image making and its relationship to surface and materiality.
The resulting works, rich in texture and often oscillating between representation and abstraction, blur the boundaries between disciplines and initiate a dialog
with other media such as painting, sculpture, film and performance. Laval's work has been featured in international publications such as The New York Times, The Sunday Telegraph, Dazed & Confused, Le Monde, Le Figaro Magazine, Eyemazing, Next Level and EXIT to name but a few.
Karine's work "The Pool" reflects her interest in the social and architectural location of the swimming pool. The focus is on the connection between the natural and the man-made artificiality of the pool landscape. The artist was also motivated by the psychological subtext of the pool, which is linked to the image of the swimming pool and the subconscious ramifications of its stagnant water. Just like images, swimming pools can also be layered with ambiguous connotations: They are not only stages of mundane activities, but at the same time playgrounds for fear, drama and tragedy, as in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby", for example.
In "The Pool", the photographer with French roots uses photography's ability to create visual narratives that reflect moments from her childhood. The choice of a uniform color palette with saturated and balanced hues recalls the quality of 16 mm and Super 8 home movies, reinforcing the ambiguous relationship between reality and fiction. Beyond her personal memory, it is also a collective memory that she seeks to reveal through the common and universal experience of leisure and bathing.
Karine is also fascinated by the concept of space and the relationship we enter into with it in our everyday lives. The artist is passionate about swimming pools and beach resorts because, on the one hand, they represent a dominant theme of modern life in our culture and, on the other, they seek to blend the natural element of water with the cultural and social elements of an artificial environment. Although the bather's activities and expressions are familiar and spontaneous, the captured scenes seem to follow a silent choreography once the moment is isolated and frozen in the camera. However, the series of the pool in Karine's work marks a departure from her previous work. For her, the pool stands as a metaphor for a kind of mirror, whose surface reflects the surrounding world, and at the same time represents a gateway into another world - a kind of "mise en abyme " Through the level of dreamlike reflections and painterly layers that oscillate between abstraction
and representation, she attempts to explore the friction between the real and the imaginary as well as
the boundaries between photography and painting. The images serve not only as illustrations of the physical experience of water or the leisure it normally represents,
but use light, perspective, color and texture to depict a world on the edge of the real and surreal.
Karine has always had a passion for water and water's edge. To her, the element is soothing, healing and liberating, serving as a vehicle for transformation and self-reflection that speaks to the senses. This notion of senses and gestures, especially when they touch the human figure, is another important aspect of her work. The human flesh in its color, immersed and distorted by the water, is a way of magnifying the body and giving it shine, like a precious fabric that one would like to touch and caress. The blurring also creates a feeling of alienation, as the distorted bodies seem to float in the ether or glide into the depths of the water and almost disappear.
The body then becomes unreachable. It is precisely this tension between the desirable and the unattainable that is to be called into question. The human figure, distorted when immersed in the element of water, begins to dissolve and shifts our states of mind. more info and more works by the artist:
Karine Laval
karinelavalstudio.com
karinelaval.com
"Schnappschuss" magazine
The Foto Koch magazine has a modern, creative design and is relatively unique in terms of design and content further information
