LE PEUPLE DES ARBRES
THE TREE PEOPLE Photographer Christian Dupré is presenting a series of photographs entitled ‘Le peuple des arbres’, accompanied by two video installations by Anne-Laure Dupré @annelaureonearth. The images and videos were taken in Costa Rica and Madeira. These living natures plunge the viewer into a forest of symbols. Like mandalas, they invite us to introspect and observe. A little silence and the eye plunges ever deeper into the dense, vibrant and intense jungle. Everyone will see what they want to see of the tree people lurking in the shadows. Green, misty or almost monochromatic, the images are an invitation to an inner journey. Christian Dupré's photographs will be presented in the secular minerality of the Part-Dieu cloister, accompanied by two video installations by Anne-Laure Dupré. ‘Le peuple des arbres’ is a 13-minute video composed of sounds and images taken in Costa Rica, Madeira and Argentina to recreate a poetic and mysterious forest. ‘La danse des feuilles’ is a 4-minute video mapping in which images are projected onto handmade paper inlaid with plant prints. Christian Dupré's photographs are printed using a pigment inkjet printer on Nepalese paper made from the bark of the lokta tree.
2023 I LE PEUPLE DES ARBRES I Solo exhibition I Festival Altitudes I Switzerland
INNER LANDSCAPE
Close your eyes. Close your eyes but don't stop seeing. There's a world in this night streaked with lights. In this sizzling darkness, there are inner landscapes. Christian Dupré's photographs do not seek to reproduce the visible; they follow the traces of an evanescent world. Beyond the sensory reality, the images are like memories. We perceive a glow, reflections, something vibrating. The print on Nepalese paper doubles this effect. So much so that you wonder: is this still photography? Is it something else? Is it a snapshot being taken? Or a snapshot of a world that reveals itself spontaneously? These landscapes exist. They exist somewhere. In someone's eyes. Yours, perhaps.
2019 I INNER LANDSCAPE I Duo Exhibition I Im Gjätt gallery I Bern I Switzerland
HIMALAYA
For the last thirty years, Christian Dupré has been travelling the Himalayan range, focusing on its light. As a photographer and mountain guide, he has produced thousands of images. His subjective views give the vast expanses of land the air of interior landscapes. His photographs are not intended to reproduce the visible, but to follow in the footsteps of an evanescent world. The Gruyère-born photographer's work is marked by the question of figuration: what do these mountain ranges tell us beyond the realms of the senses? The result is images that sometimes push dissimilarity to the point of illegibility. That's where our own readings begin. Christian Dupré's photographs invite us to catch a glimmer, a reflection. The print on Nepalese paper doubles this effect. The process reveals movement and character. The works are imbued with reliefs where the mountains intertwine their manes. The Himalayas, the home of the snows, the roof of the world, with its glaciers, lakes and rivers, are a dreamland. We see the human in the stone, the stone in the wind, the wind in our hair, all of which comes back to us, giggling. Like a mystery that gives us hope.
2016 I Himalaya I Solo exhibition I Galerie La Distillerie I Bulle I Switzerland
L’ART ET LE BOUDDHA
ART AND BUDDHA Christian Dupré has made several trips to Burma, to the Po Win Taung archaeological site, for his photographic work on rock statuary. It's a place dotted with temples and chapels carved into the rock, telling the story of Buddhism. While the paintings of this exceptional sanctuary have often been reproduced in books, its centuries-old statues are still little known. The Swiss photographer sets out to capture the atmosphere and colours of each of these excavated temples. Drawing on sources of natural light, setting up his tripod for long exposures, he travels like a pilgrim through the thousand caves of the sacred site, meeting ten thousand Buddhas. In the lens, the wise men of stone vibrate, they seem to twitch in the manner of men whose portraits are taken. The volcanic rock that gave birth to them now gnaws at their silhouettes as if it wanted to take them back into its belly. Human activity appears entangled with nature.
1999 I L'Art et le Bouddha I Galerie Trace Ecart I Bulle I Switzerland
UNE HEURE AU MUSEE
AN HOUR AT THE MUSEUM The final project Christian Dupré is currently working on takes a more playful approach. Entitled ‘An hour in the museum’, it involves taking photos in the exhibition spaces, as and when you feel like it, as the scenes unfold. Christian Dupré has found a way of exploring the museum with a light heart and a keen eye. He has given himself sixty minutes to capture life in front of and behind the museum display cases, the emotions of visitors as they gaze at the works they have visited.
DU CIEL
FROM THE SKY This reflection on the landscape is also reflected in his aerial photographs. Views of the sky, the camera fixed on the window of a long-haul aircraft. The image is then worked along the same lines, blurring and confusing tracks and landmarks, the better to lose ourselves in these abstract escapes. Faced with it, you wonder where you are. It's like walking through an imaginary landscape.