“What is present in Nature is not only in the domain of the visible…”
Paul Zimmerman in conversation with Michel Audebert
Paul Zimmer: When did you become interested in art?
Michel Audebert: Actually, I became interested in art indirectly… through photography, which I used as a model for drawing when I was a teenager! Afterwards, logically enough I became interested in photography as a subject… But, already from that moment on, I wanted to focus my attention beyond photography, which in France was not yet considered as an art form in its own right… in the mid-1970s! My certain taste for photography with a “pictorialist” tendency naturally led me to be interested in painting and then by extension in sculpture. I could specify mainly impressionist painting, but also surrealist and a little later lyrical abstraction… and in sculpture neo-classicism and modern sculpture. So, one can say that the Fine Arts have been appealing to me since my youth, without forgetting also in my childhood the presence of classical music that my parents listened to, and which has perhaps developed a “certain sensitivity” in me, from a very young age…
PZ: Nature and female form seem to be major inspirations for you. Are they related?
MA: Absolutely, for a long time I called my photographic approach “Back to the Origins”… and there, everything is summarized! In fact, it is a research where I try to find the most ancestral sensations and emotions possible, that we can feel in contact with Nature… and provoked by it! For this research a little “regressive”, no trace of civilization must be present … This authenticity must be expressed by the sensory and emotional intensity of the image … For me, in fact the most “rough” nature by its contact also allows me a work of interiority on myself… Of course the Human is also an integral part of Nature, represented in my images, by the Woman… Moreover, this osmosis of the Woman and Nature shows well to what extent the naked Human is part of Creation!
Regarding the notion of form, whether it is feminine or natural elements, for me it is always a bearer of beauty, sensitivity and expression … The form is the visual manifestation of the forces and perhaps the spirit, which inhabit these natural and human bodies !…
PZ: Your photography have a meditative quality. Is there a spiritual aspect in you work?
MA: This is very true… for both subjects! This search for sensations and emotions that are as strong as possible and also felt, puts me in a very powerful personal meditative condition and in a spontaneous way… In fact, this form of spontaneous meditation leads me to try to capture in a certain way “what is not seen” but what is felt… One can say that this process has been done in my home over the years, almost without my knowledge!… I even go so far as to say that my solitude, assumed and entering in resonance with Nature, is going to provoke in me perceptions that are said to be “extrasensory” and a “metaphysical” conviction. Of course I do not impose this vision of things to anyone, and I leave everyone free to think that the messages that Nature can send me are only the result of my own sensitivity… In any case, this kind of “second state” in which I find myself in contact with Nature, means that I don’t always remember having witnessed the lights, forms and materials that I capture in my images!
I can consider in fact, that the meditative aspect of my research, is the first step in a process that goes to the extrasensory perceptions evoked before… For me, what is present in Nature is not only in the domain of the visible… I feel very deeply the energies that circulate there, just as at a certain moment Space and Time seem to be abolished and I have the impression to evolve in another dimension, while being conscious of it paradoxically… for me, through different Energy, Time and Space, another Universe seems to open a door… I think that my solitary temperament and a perception of time passing, since my youngest age and a little later a perception of death, have certainly predisposed me to feel life and nature beyond appearance! … Through a personal experience, I have metaphysical convictions, which moreover are more and more confirmed by the current Physics… Here I give you my truth that, of course, I do not try in any way to impose !
PZ: Do you have any particular goal in mind when your start a new piece?
MA: You could say that for me, a new piece is a new series of images… If I don’t have a particular objective when I start “shooting”, it is nevertheless obvious that it will be necessarily linked to my emotional and psychic state of the moment… and this one will become the reflection of it and its result! In fact I photograph rather little, to keep a certain intensity of expression at the moment when I make my images, and from this desire of creation comes this pleasure of discovery always renewed! I would even say that I am looking for a rare moment, and that in this objective I am always in the strongest possible availability of mind, to enter this “other reality” I was talking about previously. This work is “autobiographical” insofar as my experience conditions my sensitivity of the moment and participates in the final result, as well as by this very personal “connection” with Nature! But I always hope that some spectators of my photographic work will find their own sensitivity in it…
PZ: How did your art change over time?
MA: In the beginning, when I started to find my graphic style, I started with a rather abstract research on the sky where I already wanted to totally isolate it from the rest of the urban landscape, because I was doing it from my window in Paris… Afterwards, the idea of doing a work on the “Creation of the World” came to me quite naturally! From that moment on, the project to integrate all the subjects of Creation became obvious… I still had to find my style and its coherence, for all the subjects ! That’s how the themes of Nature, the Elements and then later on of the Woman, came to enrich my artistic research on Creation… And more recently, although light has always been very present in my images, it has taken on a preponderant importance and has even become a photographic subject in itself !…
MA: As far as my inspiration is concerned, it has changed over time… The sectors of thought or even culture have been different references according to the stages of my life. Quite naturally, in the beginning it was the Fine Arts more than photography that inspired me… Quite a long time after, Psychoanalysis gave me another reading of my photographic work, and in return we can say that it influenced me in this photographic research ! Then, as a lover of Rock music in the broadest sense of the word, and in particular of the great solo guitarists, beyond inspiration I also drew a parallel with my own creation of images… Finally,
since always more or less consciously a spiritual vision was present in my artistic work… but this vision has been asserting itself lately. It has become both amplified and more present in my opinion in the result of my image creation…
PZ: How would you describe yourself as an artist?
MA: I describe myself as a visual artist, using the technique of photography… more than as a photographer in the strict sense! In fact, at one time my work had been “spotted” by the Academy of Fine Arts of Paris, which had even proposed me to present my candidacy for entry to the Casa Velasquez, an artist’s residence, as a photographer!… Otherwise, my style of expression is more in the field of Modern Art and Classical Art, than in that of Contemporary Art…
PZ: Which artists are you most influenced by?
MA: Undeniably, painters were my first source of inspiration… before photographers. First of all, I really appreciated the surrealist painting with first Salvador Dali, then Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Paul Delvaux… Afterwards I was very interested Lyric Abstraction, with Zao Wou-Ki, Chu Teh-Chun… Among the photographers, I will quote Lucien Clergue, David Hamilton, Jeanloup Sieff, André Martin, Jean-François Jonvelle, and more recently Jan Saudek, Joel-Peter Witkin that I appreciate a lot without being an influence for me !…
PZ: How would you describe your style?
MA: I would define my artistic “style” as borrowing from Modern and Classical Art, and not from Contemporary Art… Indeed, one can find aesthetic codes in it, but above all I think that the way to apprehend my artistic work through emotion and the taste for a certain plastic beauty, does not correspond to the mainly intellectual approach of Contemporary Art. I can also say that I “play” with visual perception through the use of a particular photographic technique! Especially on the different planes of the image, with their very different degrees of sharpness, their verticalization and their lack of depth… In fact, this work on perception, sensation and emotion, goes beyond visual representation and must create a very “intimate” relationship with Nature !
PZ: Do you have any goal as an artist?
MA: First of all, I always thought that photography was a major art and not secondary as many people still perceive it today… And this by its strange relationship with Time that we would like to stop and the Reality which is only an appearance! Photography is according to me, perhaps the art which translates best our ambiguous relationship with Time and Reality…
As an artist as you probably guessed it, my objective would be to amplify the emotional and sensory potential of Photography… by exceeding its visual “limits” ! In this sense, this is perhaps why my work is more recognized by the amateurs of the plastic arts, than by those of photography in the strict sense… But there are many of us, artists photographers, to seek this “photographic transcendence” !…
PZ: How does the pandemic influence your work and sensibility?
MA: In fact, I may be surprised, but the pandemic has not much influence on my sensibility… I had the confirmation that Nature takes back its rights on the Human, maybe more quickly than we thought ! At the time of the first confinement, pollution has decreased and animals have quickly reinvested the territories left free by Man… And especially the cities, where we could see some animals venturing into what represented for them, new spaces of discoveries !… which is very symbolic for me. The pandemic reminded us of the omnipotence of Nature…
I was lucky to be able to continue part of my artistic work through my research on the Elements, through the skies that I photograph from the height of my windows in the city !… Moreover I found there a form of purity of lights and colors that I had not met for many years… But I must also recognize that the emotional context of this pandemic has, I think, sharpened my visual acuity and maybe even my sensitivity as an artist!