2015 / SELF-ESCAPED (photo series)

SELF-ESCAPED

Mixed-Media / Excerpt / Photobook (2015)

Synopsis: These are large groups of people, similar anywhere. Under the sweat, the squeeze, the noise, they dance, jump and drink. They get together to find in music the relief to the day by day, in festivals and clubs. There I go to study the final happiness produced by all this confusion: I observe the faces and the bodies immersed in this small state of trance and I photograph these fugitive moments in between the lights and the movements in constant change. The spaces are confined but there is a principle of freedom that drives everything. Intimate and shared, these people are transfiguring, in a common collision in between private and public life. I am looking for a depiction of that need to escape, that feeling that summed up all the general motivations. And, under the smoke and the neon lights, I capture instants that are gone within the next second. But, because a finished image is not always entirely able to hold up to the vitality experienced by the photographer, I resort to an analog fusion with painting to save this energy : smudges chop gestures and expressions and strong colors and fast brush-strokes underline that raw human energy. The environments grow more intense - the trance is nearer.

Participations: Francisca, Luís and friends.

Thanks to: Patrícia Saramago, Mónica Calle, Sandrina Marques