Artist Q & A: Isabelle Menin

Isabelle Menin, Changing Moods - Grey 02, Lightjet Print Mounted on Archival Substrate, 47.2 X 47.2 in. Edition of 3 + AP


1. What initially attracted you to photography, and how did you make the transition from your previous artistic practices to this medium?

I was not satisfied with my pictorial production - I practiced and exhibited but with the feeling (which was a certainty even if I did not really admit it to myself) that it was not in painting that I could build something. I think that I "repeated" things, concepts, but by remaining only on the surface; I did not dive completely into my paintings. Between them and me something did not pass. In fact, I did not feel free, probably because I had not yet found my vocabulary, my own language.
And then, as often is the case in life, it was a small detail that forced things. Following a breakup, I moved, and in my new apartment there was white carpet - immaculate, impeccable. I told myself that I couldn’t ruin this beautiful carpet with paint. It’s quite funny because this white carpet on the floor was a bit like the white surface of the canvas. Too much respect for this carpet, too much respect for the painting: it acted like prohibitions. At that time, I was already working on a computer and doing a lot of graphics, so I diverted my creation towards digital. And there was the great discovery. Reworking photos, scanning elements, mixing everything without preconceived ideas. I was like a fish finally in water - I had found my medium. There was no longer the “noise” of the world between me and what I was doing. I needed to start from a small piece of reality, from something that already existed - photography offered me that.

A floral composition by Menin about to be photographed at the artist's studio.


2. As an artist with a background in painting and illustration, how do these disciplines influence your photography? Do you consider them as distinct or integrated forms in your work?

I don’t ask myself this question – I am told often that there is a very pictorial aspect to my images, but it’s not an “effect” that I’m looking for. I assemble, accumulate, remove and add elements just as I would with brushes, but not with the idea that it looks like a painting. I don’t want something glossy, clean and smooth, as these layers of elements and materials give this aspect; I don’t look for it, it happens.


3. What specifically attracts you to flowers, and how do they serve as a metaphor or symbol in your work when you combine and juxtapose them with digital elements?

I’ve been asked very often why flowers? The answer is not easy: I don’t know exactly why.
Beyond the obvious connection to nature and beauty, there is something that can’t be explained. Something more subterranean. Moreover, I prefer to work on things that have no connection with the human figure.
Flowers are obviously flowers, but, more obscurely, they are shapes, colors, smells, variations, vibrations; my manipulation of them is an attempt to portray the sensuality of the world and the changing and ephemeral emotions that we can feel.

At the artist's studio.


4. Your compositions seem to mix chaos and harmony, almost like an orchestration of forms. How do you create this balance in your superimposed arrangements?

I create it... by orchestrating the forms! I have to start from chaos, put this, that, in the image, mix, accumulate, then remove, erase, decrease or increase the quantity of elements or colours until I obtain a whole that seems balanced to me. Exactly like one orchestrates a musical score or a cooking recipe. It is witchcraft.

Isabelle Menin, Living Underground 14, Lightjet Print Mounted on Archival Substrate, 47.2 X 59 in. Edition of 3 + AP


5.There is a beautiful and distinct quality of light integrated into your images that suggests a connection or an influence "from the past". Do you have any particular favourite artists or movements?

Except for so-called "conceptual" art, there are far too many movements or artists that appeal to me to single out one or the other. In art, there are many things that respond to each other and resonate with each other. In addition, the influence can also come from literature or music.


6. How do you think your work has evolved over time, particularly in the digital manipulation and abstraction of your floral subject?

I am moving away a little from the representation of the flower in the literal sense - it is increasingly about going to the heart of what is at stake, the emotion, the tension. The flower becomes an object (or a subject) like any other, a pretext for the expression of forces and movement. In addition, I sometimes have the impression that it is the image that decides – it is the image that takes me and leads me where I did not know I was going to go. It is the image that decides what it will reveal to me about myself or my intentions.

Isabelle Menin, Be Careful With That Axe, Eugene, 03, Lightjet Print Mounted on Archival Substrate, 47.2 X 47.2 in. - Edition of 3 + 2AP


7. Photography is often about capturing a “moment,” but your approach seems to reinterpret time and space. How does photography, for you, serve as a tool to create new realities, rather than simply documenting the existing world?

I am not concerned with documenting the real world; rather, it is an impulse that pushes me to create an image. An impulse that comes from an emotion, a feeling, positive or negative. Something pushes me to construct an image through which – no matter what it is – I can evacuate this emotion.

As far as I am concerned, photography (or at least the digital manipulations I make of it) is intended to capture an object of desire and manipulate it to make it mine. I work according to a line of conduct that is natural and emotional, without intellectual process. I do not try to document the existing world or to understand it; rather, I try to avoid the pain it causes. An image becomes a space, or a “landscape”, where I can breathe better.