Fabrice Mabillot
Fabrice Mabillot combines classical aesthetics with current technology and an avowed desire for his models. He is only attracted to women who have something extraordinary about them and who strike him as emotionally or erotically dazzling (or both at once!).
Once he has found his models, he follows an unspoken protocol, setting them in a minimally decorated space, often his own apartment or a hotel room. This allows him to capture their full attention and concentrate their gaze. The apparent simplicity of his photographs is the result of many years of experiments with several cameras, including a Polaroid SX-70, a Pentax 6x7, a 4x5 view camera, a folding camera, and an iPhone, which all stimulate his creativity in different ways.
Fabrice Mabillot started out in photography in 1979 when he met his first love, Valérie. He was just sixteen when he began reading Photo magazine, which introduced him to the work of Jeanloup Sieff and David Hamilton. He was eager to begin photographing Valérie with a cheap but effective Zénith. At that time, his approach to photography was all about black and white and finding his own way, developing his negatives in the darkroom at the local youth club and printing them in his cellar. His real career as a photographer only began with the twenty-first century, however, after twenty years working as an art director on lingerie and women's fashion shoots – time well spent studying the photographers working for him, with perhaps a hint of jealousy. Breaking into their ranks seemed an unthinkable ambition until he simply decided to give it a go, shooting his own photographs.
His work took a more personal turn in 2008, drawing on his contacts to take test shots of the women he found attractive and stopping potential sitters in the street, his desire overcoming his natural shyness. His aesthetic quest, coupled with his search for ever more pure emotional encounters, took him to far-flung parts of the world where exotic beauties and the easy-going lifestyle lent him new inspiration.
In 2012, he began to turn away from his predominantly urban background to embrace nature, choosing more bucolic settings for his images, with new models adding their names to create new stories that remain to be told.
VEVAIS-WERKDRUCK –
the new book series of edition GALERIE VEVAIS
Chief Editor and special advisor for VEVAIS-WERKDRUCK (photography) is the renowned photographer Jock Sturges.
Project editors include acclaimed poet and photo historian, Prof. John Wood, poet and photography critic, Steven Brown, and Alexander Scholz.
VEVAIS-WERKDRUCK books consist of twenty images which highlight astonishing work from both new and renowned painters, photographers, and graphic designers. Each hardcover book (approx. 30 x 43 cm) is bound by hand with Japanese binding, signed and numbered by the artist, and published in an edition of 300 copies.
Because of the sophisticated printing methods involved, each print is unique, an original. Scholz uses the world's best reproduction/photographic printing techniques. Digital files undergo traditional darkroom chemistries and develop on paper with red, green, and blue light (C-Prints). Some will be printed as pigment print or as UV print. Black and White pictures will be also presented on Baryta paper. Before binding, in some books the prints are mounted fully on special boards. For pigment prints, Scholz works with Hahnemühle paper and for UV-prints (digital screen printing), Scheufelen paper. Some books will be printed with a special digital color technology on Munken, a Swedish paper.
Scholz works with the printers Ralf Lenk / Scancolor and Max van Pham / Fine Art Factory—dedicated artisans who always find innovate ways to produce perfect pictures. Given the unparalleled production and specialization involved, Edition GALERIE VEVAIS guarantees the quality of these prints for up to 100 years.
Collectors:
For collectors of this stunning series WERKDRUCK, edition GALERIE VEVAIS offers an exclusive display of acrylic glass which doubles as a minimalistic sculpture for private living rooms, galleries, and libraries. The basic model for this acrylic stand holds four VEVAIS-Werdruck books. But for those who need more space, the basic model can be extended in two ways. By standing the sculpture in one line or by facing the corners inward, you can add four more books to your collection for a total of eight. The second model can be extended to a more dimensional sculpture of unlimited capacity.
Pricing:
The first thirty copies will sell for approx. 560 Euros, after which the price will increase.
