Larmes
Damien Caccia
Larmes (Tears) is a photographic project presenting a series of miniature images created with a mobile phone between 2015 and 2022. These archival images are transferred from photo paper onto dry drops of glue, giving them an elongated, baroque effect. The use of these two materials and – the passage from hot to cold – modify the shape of the droplets; they take on a shapeless appearance, similar to pieces of cameo jewellery. All that remains of this movement is a thin layer of glue – it acts like a lens, representing the vanishing point that structures the environment. Our gaze is drawn to it, but the image is miniaturised, inverting our sense of perspective. Viewers become engaged in the act of looking; they’re forced to get closer to read each image. This participatory dimension compensates for the low definition of the image, simultaneously commanding the viewer’s entire gaze and diverting attention from surrounding images.
The title refers as much to the medium – the drops of glue – as to the physiology of the eye in the act of seeing and moving; there is no emotion without movement. My project aims to bring movement back into the hypnotised eyes of today.
Damien Caccia (b. 1989) studied at the École supérieure d’arts des Rocailles, and then at the École Supérieure des beaux-arts de Nantes. His creative approach is based on narration: viewers are drawn into a fictional visual world, playing their own role in its creation. Using various materials – acrylic paint on glass, concrete, plaster, bleached tarps and fabrics – Caccia works at the frontiers of abstraction, with light, shape and colour offering rhythm to his creations. A co-founder of Grande Surface, an artist-run space in Brussels, his work has been exhibited by a range of institutions in France and Belgium.