BlackDust is a three years long project reinvestigating the theme of Incarnation and life cycles, dear to Valsecchi.
While highlighting the artist’s photographic mastery through near-to monochromatic images, Black Dust is the final chapter to Valsecchi’s “I am Dust” saga. While “Dust” illustrated the birth of the photographer’s cosmology, “Time of War” liberated these chaos-spawned creatures by infusing them with a soul and a purpose: a battle to fight. Replacing the primeval ash, this very element which has transiently crossed through the cycles of life and death, by charcoal powder, Valsecchi crafted an innovative and powerful series. Stained by the epic tales’ darkness and violence, the bursting energy of his Ovidian heroes remains resilient until the final chapter.
About Olivier Valsecchi
Born in 1979 in Paris, Olivier Valsecchi uses photography as a medium to incarnate the emotions of his psyché. Directing nude models like a conductor, he orchestrates fantasmagorical images where bodies, outlined in dramatic chiaroscuro, are deprived of gender or identity to be merely used as elements of a narrative. His first series “Dust” (2009) earned him international acclaim, Hasselblad Masters Award – Fine Art category in 2012 as well as many exhibitions around the world. His next series Klecksography (2012) and Drifting (2014) confirmed a sophisticated sense of light and a particular mix of aesthetics, bizarre and emotion. Over the years, Valsecchi has developed a unique and soulful take on the human form and is now considered one of the most notable new representatives of contemporary nude photography. The beauty and expressiveness of the human body is magnetic in his mystical and spiritual compositions. His works center around the themes of cycles, birth, death, rebirth. [Official Website]
