Photographer Jean-Vincent Simonet pushes the boundaries of photography to the point where his work could be called painting. For his latest projects, he returned to his family's business, a printing factory near Lyon.
As a child, Jean-Vincent Simonet spent many hours in his parents' print shop, Imprimerie Fouquet Simonet. The family business, based near Lyon, mainly prints labels, leaflets and flyers. These products do not require a great deal of creativity or artistry, but that is not what customers are looking for. Above all, they want their prints to look neat and tidy and to be delivered on time.
Born in 1991, Simonet practically grew up in the print shop, which has been in his family for generations. It was there that he learnt the rules and laws of visual communication. It was a great foundation for a graphic profession. Only Simonet did not become a printer, but a photographer, although 'visual alchemist' might be a better way of describing what the Frenchman does.
Ephemera no. 10, 2023 © Jean-Vincent Simonet / courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery.
Transformation
He began his career as a magazine and fashion photographer, but soon began to manipulate his simple, stylised photographs with experimental techniques. For example, he prints some of his photos on plastic sheets so that the ink never dries completely. He then uses water and chemicals to change the surface of the print. This gives his photographs a heady energy. Everything starts to flow and the images become more and more abstract. The chaos of poetry', he once called it, commenting on an exhibition of his work.
For his most recent projects, Simonet returned to his family's print shop. At night or during holidays, when the shop was closed, he would wander around the premises. He saw details he had not noticed before and observed what had changed over the years.
In the paintings he made there, he explored his complicated relationship with the family business. His Mechanical Paintings consist of photographs printed on plastic left over from the print shop. He then applies several more layers of ink, causing the colours to blend together. The images evoke the hustle and bustle of a print shop in full operation, with the pounding of presses and the constant ingress and egress of rolls of paper, pots of ink and piles of printed matter.
Heirloom no. 05, 2022 © Jean-Vincent Simonet / courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery.
His series Heirlooms is much quieter. In it, Simonet focuses on objects and machines from the print shop, such as bulging filing cabinets, cans of ink, stacks of folders and the cluttered desks where designs are worked out. What we don't see are the employees. Simonet only documents the 'hardware' of the company.
He has also edited these photos extensively, including by rubbing the wet ink with his fingers. Thus, each print is unique, which in turn provides an interesting contrast to the very uniformity the print company strives for and goes against the idea that photographs can be reproduced endlessly. Perhaps we should no longer call his work photography, as Simonet has stretched the boundaries of the medium to the point where he already has one foot firmly in painting.
Read the Dutch version through the link below.
