PRESS RELEASE 04.04. 2012photo edition berlin presents

Bernard Pras – France

Anamorphosis – free figure15th April – 02nd June 2012

Opening reception: Sunday, 15th April from 2-6 pmThe artist Bernard Pras will be present.

Detail from: „La grande vague“ C-Print, 120x160cm, 2007

For the start of the spring, Photo Edition Berlin is showing „Anamorphosis – Free figure“, a Photo project of the French artist BERNARD PRAS. This exhibition is his first solo-show in the Berlin gallery.

About the work:Starting from a photograph, Bernard Pras creates amazing pieces of art, by adding ordinary objects like used toys, tools, pieces of rubber, or whatever else you can think of. From up-close his works look like nothing more than random stacks of stuff, but from a certain angle and distance, they reveal their true beauty.

Bernard Pras was born in 1952 and studied fine arts in Toulouse. In 1997, having painted during 20 years, he found a new way of expression. Working from a drawing, he collects heteroclite objects, according to their colour, their shape, and even their sense. Then he assembles them, observing the progress of his work through his camera. Then appears the subject, whose image will be fixed.

After an extensive and wide-ranging training, the artist Bernard Pras slowly began to focus on portraiture while experimenting with many different techniques.

Benard Pras adds an extra dimension of complexity: he distributes the individual elements that constitute his portraits in rooms - frequently locations chosen with great care - that participate in the creation of the composite artworks. But in the end it requires a camera lens to bring them together in a photograph, and to turn them into recognizable portraits.

He makes use of anamorphosis, which is then retracted by the camera’s lens. This is not the place to reflect on the pool of associated components he draws on. However, the resulting images are so powerful that one feels as though someone has fully understood Arcimboldo’s method of composite art and has catapulted it into the present. In these large-scale compositions, seemingly filling the space of his studio in a chaotic and haphazard way, Pras is able – with the aid of his skill in rendering perspective and his unrivalled photographic eye - to breathe life into his imaginary portraits that document a sense of irony and humour. More than making a simple copy, Pras gets to grips with building a mental landscape, in such a way that, if it's not the real hero who emerges, it's an emanation who resembles him trait for trait, lit up by thesame cardinal qualities or faults.

Reliefs, pigments and pixels, the objects intervene and accumulate like brushstrokes, lines, commas, reminders, pictorial gimmicks. An Eiffel Tower turns into a nose, an upturned chair into the plane of a cheek, a ball is an eyes, a shell is an ear, and a fork is a fore arm in this orgy worthy of an adding up à‐ ‐ la Prévert (Interactivity! an object can change roles and take on new charges of varying intensities for the sake of another composition).

Despite everything, the problematic of the choice of subject and the strategy by which it reach it, remain intact. Text by Christian Louis Eclimont‐

Artist website:http://www.bernardpras.fr/

Gallery Adress:PHOTO EDITION BERLINYstaderstr. 14aD- 10437 BerlinTel: +49 (0)30 41717831contact@photo-edition-berlin.comhttp://www.photoeditionberlin.com/

Contact: Gunther Dietrich, Director

Opening hours:Wed. 2-6pm and Sat. 12am - 4 pm and by appointment

Please contact us for high resolution press images.

Biography

Born 22nd March 1952 in Roumazières (Charente), France.

Solo Exhibitions

2012Galerie Photo Edition, Berlin, Allemagne.L'acb Scène Nationale, Bar-le-Duc, France.2011L'arc Scène Nationale, Le Creusot, FranceLille Art Fair, Mazel Galerie. BelgiqueFestival Photopring, Beijing, Chine.Galerie Jos Depypere, Kuurne, Belgique.2010Hôtel de ville de Vincennes, FranceMazel Galerie, Bruxelles, Belgique.

http://www.bernardpras.fr/http://www.photoeditionberlin.com/

2009Galerie Le soleil sur la place, Lyon, France.« Femme-Objets » à la Galerie IUFM Confluence(s), Lyon, France.« Rumeur » exposition et installation du « Christ de Loudun », Collégiale Sainte-Croix, Loudun,France.Installation de « Pita » à Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Afrique.« De désirs en objets », La lune en parachute, Épinal, France.Galerie Almacèn, Exposition et installations, Rio de Janeiro, Brésil.Galerie Tony Rocfort, Rennes, France.Galerie Claire Gastaud, Clermont Ferrand, France.Galerie Annie Lagier, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, France.2008«Anamorphotographie », Galerie Suty, Bordeaux, France.« Vrai-semblance et Faux-semblant », Galerie Nathalie Gaillard, Paris, France.Installation de « La vierge et l’enfant » dans le Giardino de Daniel Spoerri, Seggiano, Italie

Groupshows

2011Art X Mas, Mazel Galerie, Bruxelles, Belgique.Art Paris, Galerie Claire Gastaud. France.La lune en parachute, Epinal. France.Galerie Laurent Strouk, Paris, France.Festival "La Bacchanale", Bruère Allichamps. France.Chic Art Fair, Mazel Galerie, Bruxelles, Belgique.Art Elysées, Galerie AD, Béziers, France.2010Art Paris, Galerie Nathalie Gaillard, Paris.Mazel Galerie, Bruxelles.2009Exposition dans le Giardino de Daniel Spoerri, Seggiano, Italie« Les Inattendus », événements autour de l’art et de l’habillage urbain, Sainte-Savine, France.Art Paris, Galerie Nathalie Gaillard, Paris, France.« La Bacchanale », Bruère Allichamps, France.« Ingres et les Modernes », Musée d’Ingres, Montauban, France.2008Exposition Arcimboldo, Kunst Historisches khm Museum, Vienne, Autriche.Marianne 2008, Galerie Lefor Openo, Paris, France.Art Paris, Galerie Nathalie Gaillard, Paris, France.Installation de « Adam et Eve » dans le jardin de Bernard Thimonnier, Sancerre, France.« Bagarre à la française », Galerie Raphaël 12, Frankfurt, Allemagne.« Epouvantails Epreuves d’artistes », Manoir de Couesme, Ancinnes, France.

Publications2011"Cartier Art" n° 27 "Louis XIV""Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Book 8 "Dali"2010“Watch", Russian Edition, couverture du magazine “La vague”, P50-53.2009"Artpress 2" , Images cachées, p.77, trimestriel n°13, Mai/Juin/Juillet 2009." Arcimboldo 1526-1593 ", texte de Sylvia Ferrino-Pagden, P.16-17, éd. Skira, MuséeLuxembourg, kunst historisches muséum (khm), 2007“Jornal do Commercio” 9 novenbre 2009, P-18, Brésil.“JB Caderno B” jornal do Brasil, 15 novembre 2009.

BroadcastFrance 2, septembre 2009.TV5 Monde, septembre 2009.

Images for publication web:

All artworks are copyrighted by the artist Bernard Pras.

Empire des sens ( Realm of the Senses ), C-Print, Edition of 5, 124x153cm, 2008

Pita ( pita), C-Print, Edition of 9, 125 x 125cm, 2007

Vanité ( Vanity), C-Print, Edition of 10, 120 x 160cm, 2009

Le vieil homme triste ( the sad old man), C-Print, Edition of 8, 120 x 160cm, 2010

La grande vague (The great wave), Inkjet-Print, Edition of 40, 60 x 80cm, 2007