Dolorés Marat: Oblique

The Open Eye

Reviewed by Minna Alanko

The OpenEye gallery continues its impressive photographic exhibitions with Oblique by Dolorés Marat, an established French photographer. This exhibition portrays her earlier work, Edges and Labyrinthe, alongside rarely seen New York photographs, taken over the last ten years. Marat’s photographs are grainy, like enlarged pictures of a newspaper. This is due to the special printing method, the so-called Fresson process (le procédé Fresson), developed in France in the nineteenth century by Theodore-Henri Fresson. The method is now exclusively used by the Fresson family in France.

The old printing method compliments Marat’s photographs. They are visions of the moment just gone, the moment before the next inhalation. It always seems to be evening in the photographs (although it necessarily isn’t) – the moment of reflection on the events of the day, tinged with an element of sadness. Yet there is movement in the reflection, or anticipation of it. The children staring into the puddle, the people in the subway, the birds in the sky, the young people in the car. The stillness of the images seems momentarily fragile, waiting to be shaken again with the noise and pace of city life. The photographs are brief escapes, capturing the peace that is possible within every moment, whether that moment only occurs when you blink your eyes.

Edges seems the most direct body of Marat’s work, more physically closer to the subjects in the photographs. The lens is almost intrusive, invading their solitude. The woman by the wall, almost cornered, yet staring at the camera, aware. The colours are deep blues, stained into the paper; the image blurred, like when you look through tears or wet glass. People in the other photographs are more distant and the camera seems meaningless to them. The selection of photographs is well-balanced and the music – specially composed in response to Marat’s work – is pleasant, creating a meditative atmosphere.