Renée Lorie

“ [These images] (…) have lots of black in them. We understand black as the abscence of light: it denotes an unfathomable emptiness, something ‘missing’ (black nothingness). However, in photography, this blackening is precisely the consequence of a (too) large amount of light, of (too) much presence. (...) The abdundance of light that is required to turn the negative into a positive image. The black in the photograpic positive is created in the darkroom, where the light of the enlarger exposes the light sensitive paper to the barrage of light. This ‘blackening’ is so crucial in the photograpic process, that the German photographer Raoul Hausmann preferred to talk about melangography instead of photography. Photography then no longer means writing with light, but becomes the art of darkening.” - Steven Humblet on Noctuary

Renée Lorie lives and works in Brussel. She graduated in art history, filmstudies and photography.

Renée captures the light, she show her experience of the world around her. It’s a world full of contrasts. Her images show disharmony, memories in nowadays. Vulnerability, white against deep black backgrounds, day and night, emptiness and fullness. Coolness and heat, burning ice. The present and the absent. She’s looking for attachment, but displacement too. Themes are the mystery, the uncanny, abjection and the enigmatic. Creaking discomfort in down, a sensory touch in a flat image. She shows a glimpse, an error, disturbance, the lyrical. She’s showing distance, yet close framing. She uses the dark room, groping for light. Light traversing trees and water, that lives on the tide during spring tide. Everything is strange, yet daily and known. Trees, water, horse and dew, rustle, a man in a suit, sand mountains and a statue. She’s look around, capturing an image and imagining immediately another image, a walking écriture automatique, a photo novel, a same story. She likes to see the past in the present.

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