BIO

Christian Chaize, a self-taught French artist, lives and works in Lyon, France. In 1992, he was awarded the Prix European Panorama de Kodak for Young European Photographer in Arles, France. For the past 20 years, he has had a successful career as a commercial photographer.

Recently, however, Chaize became obsessed with a small stretch of coastline in southern Portugal while vacationing there in 2004. It gave new life to his on-going personal work, which began to take precedence over his professional ambitions. His commitment to this series has, thus far, garnered Chaize a one-person gallery exhibition in Lyon, and two museum exhibitions in Portugal (Sines and Lisbon).

Among other projects, Chaize continues to photograph in Portugal, to understand (or maybe not!) the ineffable draw of its inviting and mysterious landscape. He also delights in observing the unrevealed narratives of the beach goers who, through his lens, share in its magical spell.

STATEMENT PRAIA PIQUINIA & TO PRAIA GRANDE

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust

Seven years ago, Portugal did present itself as a new landscape in my life - both literally and metaphorically. Since then, I have photographed exclusively along a very small stretch of its southern coastline. Returning to this specific place, I've sought out its nuances. In doing so, I have peeled back layers of how I see, and how I experience this magical environment.

The results of my slight obsession have evolved into two distinct series. Here are two images from Praia Piquinia, a body of work focusing on a singular, secluded beach front in which all of the pictures are taken from essentially the same elevated angle. What the still life was for Morandi, this beach is for me. From a distance, I observe the variables: light, weather, time of day, the ebb and flow of the ocean, and the sunbathers, unaware, below my large format camera. The images are shot vertically, a departure from the traditional, horizontal format in landscape photography. It puts my subject matter in the form of a portrait - an ongoing record of this ethereal yet playful nook in nature over the minutes, the days, the years. Ultimately, I try to instill an element of time within these captured moments... visceral time, elastic from one image to another. And always, I seek to have new eyes.

STATEMENT PARADIS

In contrast to the beaches I frequent in Portugal, as familiar to me now as a family member, the Seychelles
were a destination I'd only visited before I considered myself an artist. This is the place, as a child, I'd idealized as paradise. 
Despite their difference, I have tried to make pictures for both Praia Piquinia and Paradis with new vision, or "regard" - a word that in French refers to observing.  In English, appropriately, it also means attention, consideration, a feeling of affection, and respect. 

While rediscovering the islands, I found myself shifting my camera between earth, sky, water, trees...trying with every 
shot to get away from the so-called conventions of framing. An approach that aligns itself aesthetically with some of the
Modernists in photography, I was intent on seeing the Seychelles without the weight of parameters. (Just large cameras!) 

Without our normal criteria for recognition, that which we look at can be renewed; new as in the first days of existence, 
breathing presence, light, and the incarnation of the world. In short, an image of paradise. So here, before these images, 
I hope for the viewer to feel exposed, like Adam or Eve before God invited them to name the elements of nature around them. 

Some subjects are challenging to identify at first, while others play off the glare in our eyes; but even slight disorientation has the potential to disarm, and stretch us. We may suddenly find ourselves more receptive - like a child who discovers the world without predispositions, without judgements that risk to reduce his or her imagination. 

Paradis represents a departure, literal and formal, from Praia Piquinia.  At the core level, I've traded the traditional portrait format for a square; but even the image titles reflect their differences. In the case of Praia Piquinia, they are determined by the precise time and date each photograph was taken, whereas with Paradis, they are all called "Sans Titres"...untitled, unnamed, and open to your interpretation...