Olivier Maire
Rreth këtij vendi
Evoking what still lingers within us upon waking, when fragments of our dreams persist, Olivier Maire draws a connection between the unconscious workings of the dream world and those of photographic development—both of which arise from darkness.Noting that the process of developing photographs in the studio can be likened to the workings of our mind at night—bringing back memories or fleeting visions—the photographer strives to bring his images to life by processing them in the darkroom. With a keen, even obsessive, interest in wild or abandoned spaces—which he photographs in an area stretching from the source to the mouth of the Rhône— Olivier Maire extracts what might be described as the essence of these images by blending the negatives under the enlarger or on the printing table. From these manipulations emerge sister images, revealing another facet or another reality of the original photograph.While in winemaking the “angels’ share” results from the evaporation of liquids, the “angels’ share” in Olivier Maire’s photographs does not seem to arise from the evaporation of chemical solutions in the developing tray, but rather to emanate from the negatives themselves, revealing their dreamlike qualities.Born in the canton of Neuchâtel, Olivier Maire has lived and worked in Valais for over 30 years. Starting out as a public relations photographer, he worked for various media outlets and clients beginning in the late 1990s, then for the Keystone agency, first as a contributor and later as a partner. In 2005, together with photographer Denis Emery, he founded the photography studio Photo-genic.ch SARL in Sion, which has since become Studio 54 SARL.Having worked in photojournalism for over thirty years, Olivier Maire continues to produce photo essays and remains interested in documentary photography. His work has regularly been featured in solo and group exhibitions. Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.