Pauline Thomas

“I want to tell a story.” This is what Pauline Thomas aims for through her various works. She seeks to enhance the real—not to embellish it, but to question and provoke reflection in a sensory way; to open souls and eyes to parallel realities; to interrogate nature and transcend genders.

For this artist, composition is created by the play of lighting angles and colors, rather than the subject itself. Her desire is to conjure another reality through ambiguity. This is eroticism as understood by Georges Bataille: the tension of continuity in the relation between two opposites. The works shown in New York as part of The Other Art Fair—and taken from the series Gorgeous and Les Nuits—are the illustration of this.

The series Les Nuits (2015-2016) consists of photographs of painted objects found in nature. The essence of these discarded elements changes in the dark, emanating a contradictory sensation, of beauty and death.

“Unlike traditional paintings and photographs of still lives, the scene is not more realistic. It depicts an advanced stage of passing, inspiring a meditation on the ephemeral nature of things.”

In Gorgeous (2007-2011)—the title plays upon the French word for “throat” (gorge)— the natural power of this part of the female body is displayed in 123 images that capture the neck thrust upward in a ecstatic position.

“As each woman voluptuously exposed their neck to me, she revealed a curious phallic identity, and I thought that including men’s necks too might also disclose a different understanding of the female gender. Who is man? Who is woman?”


Whatever the medium, Pauline Thomas’s oeuvre proffers a fascinating quest that serves the sublimation of a frozen reality.

“I like transition, change of state, the vitiation between two [visual] fields. Because it also symbolizes emotional vistas, that moment when the worlds of day and night meet. Where everything fades, to create another reality.”

This is the moment for which the artist lies in wait, to extract and bring to light the points of fracture where perfect reality and nighttime reality finally converse. Those infinite moments where the mysterious meanings of things and of beings come to the surface. And which offer to our gaze the sublimation of gender and nature through painting and light.

ENSAD Paris with honors
GOBELINS, MASTER'S DEGREE with honors
UNIVERSITY PARIS 8 PHOTOGRAPHY AND NEW MEDIA with honors

DISTINCTIONS

The Pullitzer prize Ruth Fremson, the Whitney museum curator Elizabeth Sussman awarded her serie Gorgeous. The artist Elssie Ansareo quoted her work during The Observatory exhibition project at Bilbao Guggenheim museum.
The Belfast Festival used Sandra R. (Gorgeous) as the official picture of the festival.
The irish magazine Abridged printed 2 different covers using 2 different necks.

AWARDS

2012
1st Prize Portrait Category - Exhibition in Sydney, opening the 2nd of May @ ExhibitA / Exhibition in Sydney early

2011
"Gold medal at PX3, Prix de la photographie Paris"
"3rd prize of 22nd annual international juried exhibition" given by Elisabeth Sussman, curator at Whitney Museum
"Honorable Mention in Professional Women Photographers' CONTRASTS Call for Entry" given by Ruth Fremson, pulitzer prize photojournalist
"Featured photographer on Focus project"
http://www.focusproject2011.com/portfolio.php?preview=true&artist=paulinethomas

2007
Honorable mention "in the neck of time" - International Photography Award 2007/ 5th Lucie Awards

2006
2 Clics d’or

2005
2 Top Talent Award “Overall Winner & cross-media category winner"

FAIRS

2016: Contemporary Art Ruhr Essen, Germany
2015: Contemporary Venice, Venice, Italy
2014: Morphos Sustainable Empire, Venice, Italy
2013: Story of the creative, See.me Gallery and Angel Orensanz Foundation, NYC, US
2013: Scope Art Fair, Miami, US
2011: 19e Rencontres Photographiques: Trafic d'influence", Lorient, France
2011: Art Kiev, Museum complex Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kiev, Ukraine
2011: Berliner Liste, Berlin, Germany
2009 + 2007: Révélation : Foire photo contemporaine » Paris, France
2009: Pisaf, Seoul, South Korea
2007: Expanding the space » Octubre Centre de Cultura Contemporania, Valencia, Espagne
2006: Jeune Création, Paris, France

SHOWS

My work is exhibited in galleries, art centers, juried exhibition throughout many countries Australia, US, Italy, Ukraine, France, UK, Germany.

2017: The Other Art Fair, Brooklyn
2016: Les Sentiers de la création, Lizieres Art Center & Jean de La Fontaine Gallery, France ( 1 video, 50 prints, 1 installation )
2015: Le Noir et blanc en couleurs, Lizieres Art Center, France ( 3 photographs )
2015: Habiter, être habité, Art Center Lizieres & Jean de La Fontaine Gallery, France ( 2 photographs )
2014: #SeeMeTakeover Times Square 2014, NYC
2013: Nature(s), Fondation Vazarely, Aix-En-Provence, South of France ( 1 video work )
2013: Nature(s), Lizieres, Invitations d'artistes, France ( 3 installations )
2012: ExhibitA, Sydney, Australia ( 2 photographs )
2011: #1 YAI - Young Artists Incubator , Factory Art, Berlin, Germany ( 2 photographs )
2011: Contrasts, SohoPhoto Gallery, New York City, US ( 1 photograph )
2011: 22nd international juried exhibition, Viridian artists, New York City, US ( 2 photographs )
2011: The time is now, La Scatola Gallery, London, UK ( 8 photographs )
2010: Gorgeous, Galerie Images et Portraits, Paris, France ( 120 photographs )
2009: Photo d'hotel photo d’auteur, Théâtre de l’Odéon, Paris, France ( 1 photograph )
2008: De-hors, Vence, South of France ( 9 photographs )
2007: Château de cartes, Galerie Garcia Laporte, Paris, France ( 1 interactive installation, 6 photographs )
2005: New Sounds new visuals, Le cube, Issy-les-Moulineaux/Paris, France ( 1 interactive installation )
2005: Château de cartes, Couvent des minimes, Blaye, South of France ( 3 series of 6 photographs )
2003: Rêveries, Atelier Lecoq, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, South of France ( 1 series of 12 photographs )
2002: Château de cartes, MJC, Corbeil Essonnes/Paris, France ( 12 photographs )