Photos and texts: © Thomas Devaux
Obscure and elegant, the work of photographer Thomas Devaux exists in the duality of spirit to which most personalities are confronted. It is in fact another who is depicted – surprised as the individual plunges deeper into the most profound reaches of his or her “internal state”. His work leaves one questioning the ephemeral character and even the very notion of evanescent beauty.
Replete in classical references and reinvented mythological personalities, Thomas Devaux amuses himself by playing with different photography styles before finally covering his tracks, leaving behind a finished work that is beautiful yet technically mysterious to the naked eye. With photographic samples taken from the world of fashion, he separates the personalities and materials from their environment in order to duplicate them, decompose them in order to reconstruct. He pushes of the boundaries of photography so that the final artistic work nearly replicates the look and spirit of lithography.
Thomas Devaux loves deconstruction as much as he does balance. More precisely, the concept of “controlled balance” constructed with the exclusive express purpose of its own final destruction and his concept of dramatic isolation in which the personality “undoes itself” has become his irresistible fundamental esthetic.
These bodies, which guarantee their own destruction and which were only a short time ago impenetrable armors of the beautiful and the authentic, are henceforth confronted by the truth which is far from ideal: “Beauty is structured from the void”. What now awaits it?