The dead flower pt.3

Good morning,

I'm always too optimistic and I always think I can do too much. My body and my mental health are not great at the moment so I'm fighting with my self to be more productive. But I think I'm at the end of the tunnel, and from January things will start to look different, hopefully even sooner!

Anyway, today we have what I had to post yesterday: the last part of the set by Remi Rebillard. I guess it's quite intuitive the reason why I called it "the dead flower"!

So, why I cared so much about this collaboration: I started to follow Remi a few years ago, probably I wasn't even working as model. For me having had the opportunity to work with him was a bit of a dream.

I have always been enchanted by his work, how he painted his models and what his photos made me feel. In the end, for me it all boils down to a matter of "feeling", both when I work on the set and when I see images. I personally am much more attracted by what a photo is capable of making me feel on an emotional level, rather than simply a good composition and beauty. Clearly when it comes to emotions it's extremely subjective so I'll just talk about mine.

What I see in his works is a sort of inner disagreement, due to the various present contrasts, starting from the most visible and striking one which is the use of colour. Remi shoots in low light at a long exposure adding blue gels to keep the tones cold, then literally "paints" the model with a flashlight. The end result is this (for me) magnificent contrast between cold and nostalgic tones with splashes of warm light. All spread on the bodies of women with a pure and innocent beauty, broken into twisted, plastic or "lifeless" positions. Occasionally there are their barren gazes wandering the void and even rarer, staring into the camera with the faintest hint of sadness or malice or awareness.

"how can innocence and beauty survive in a world that is drifting away?" it is written to be his recurring theme in one of his interviews. I wonder if what it actually represents is survival, or if the answer is instead to immortalize the moment before being carried adrift. For me personally it has always made me feel a sensation of calm, like the last moment of a soul that is about to gently leave its body, the flame of a candle that is about to go out in a puff of smoke. In short, no survival, but a silent and conscious death.

I think this is even more noticeable from his latest project (which includes the last two photographs), taken in natural light, always with long exposure, with a veil flowing over the body. The warm tones have disappeared, only a naked body remains under a flowing veil taking away something with it, probably life.

As with any art form I usually like to have free rein for interpretation, I don't know if my point of view is accurate or not, deemed wrong or right by the author. But this is what Remi's works made me perceive, and the thing that makes me smile is that the people who produce this type of themes never have a particularly strange or gloomy personality, actually they're far from it!

But I like to see how art is an outlet for many people (including myself) of a recondite and not very visible, sometimes darker part that we conceal and keep well hidden from everyday life.

As already mentioned this is one of my biggest achievements this year, and an absolutely beautiful experience that I hope to repeat.

Have a nice Sunday, and see you later on UNDISCLOSED for a mini mirror series!