The Altered Ones - The Boy / The Altered ones - Madam
2022
Fine Art pigment print mounted on linen stretcher, acrylic and painted floating frame
66 x 51 cm (26 x 20 inches)
Produced with the support of the Museum of Art and Archaeology of Aurillac

“Les altérées du fonds Parry” is a series of works based on the Parry photographic archive housed at the Museum of Art and Archaeology in Aurillac (France). This is a collection of 52,000 negatives on silver gelatin-bromide glass plates, dating from the late 19th to the very early 20th centuries, and depicting daily French local life in at the time. After viewing most of them, the artist turned his attention to the chemical evolution of these gelatines and their inevitable degradation over the past century, in some cases gradually erasing the subjects. Defying the passage of time, the new prints, stabilized by contemporary technology, are then mounted and given an anti-UV varnish before being covered with black acrylic paint, continuing the gradual disappearance of the subjects. This series of works questions human memory and the problem of preserving memories.