Thierry Van Biesen

I hear a song. I read a book. I see a man jumping over a puddle with an umbrella in hand. A woman looking at half her reflection in a skinny mirror. A kid balancing on a fire hydrant to make his shadow play with the stamp of a tree left by the sun on the sidewalk.
Then I close my eyes, while sitting on a train or on a park bench and see a woman slightly hovering over a zebra crossing, despite the heavy weight of her shopping bags. And a cloud that stubbornly follows each and every movement of that man, the same guy who was puddle hopping earlier.
And the tree's shadow is now playing with the kid's.
It is during these daydreams that I translate the world around me and come up with my visual stories. I layer them on top of reality, sprinkling optimism and happiness by recreating the world around me with these imaginary slices of life. Contrast between the real and the unreal is what I look for.
I then draw them, image by image. Sometimes on a piece of paper, or a paper napkin in a café, and sometimes on my computer's tablet. The day of the shoot is my time to gather all the elements needed to build these images.They are therefore snapped way before the camera sees them. And the magic that sometimes happens on the day of the actu...

American University of Beirut (AUB) '91
Mathematics, Sociology

Teaching assistant at Art Kane Photo Workshops in Cape May, New Jersey, May-September 1989.

Lycée Français de Bruxelles

Athenee De Beyrouth '81

College Louise Wegmann

Collective exhibition "Archeology of Elegance" at the Hamburg Museum of Modern Art, May 2001
Solo exhibition at Alwane gallery in Beirut, Lebanon, March 2013