THOMAS DEVAUX
Born in 1980. Lives and works in Paris.
As a visual photographer, Thomas Devaux has created a number of complex series in which both the founding values and current developments in photography come into play. His photographic work, which is close to painting and drawing, enables him to pursue his research into the themes of the sacred, the profane and transcendence.
Complete catalog of artist's artworks ici
« RAYONS » SERIES
"With Rayons series, Thomas Devaux completes his critical vision of the consumer world by reappropriating for the first time the codes of abstract painting, after having long revisited those of classical portraiture. The series brings together photographs of supermarket stalls, blurred to produce broad lines of color with indecisive contours, articulated together in a gradation of light. Very close to certain forms of abstract expressionism, with Rothko's painting at the forefront, each composition is presented as the expression of an optical residue, arranging the remains of a filtered vision reduced to the perception of light waves alone. As minimal as the treatment applied to the images, its title refers both to its original subject (supermarket shelves) and to the optical effect produced by the abstraction process (chromatic beams). Presented alongside The Shoppers series - supermarket customers captured at the checkout - and the installation Cet obscur objet du désir - a minimalist checkout mat with incisive, threatening shapes - the series adopts the color codes of supermarkets (blue, violet, pink, red, orange) to better criticize the underlying marketing strategies. The tensions between vivid hues and black stripes accentuate the seductive power of this standardized palette, the better to invite distrust, by establishing a critical distance between the sublimated chromatic surfaces and the triviality of their models. (...) - Florian Gaité, art critic and researcher at the ACTE Institute (Sorbonne-CNRS) - Excerpt from Cet obscur objet du désir, a monograph devoted to Thomas Devaux published in 2023 (ed. Cédric Bacqueville).
Further information on the monograph Cet obscur objet du désir here
Artwork above: Rayon 1.58, 2021. Fine Art Paper, Pigment Print, in three parts, frame with 22K Gold Leaf
« DICHROICS » SERIES
"The photographs in the Dichroics series impose themselves on the eye. Straight, slender, as hypnotizing as they are reflective, they radiate space with a special aura that absorbs the body and mind, arousing irrepressible desire. The contemplation is ravaging, bewitching, retinal; it exploits the structure of fantasy and libidinal impulses. Yet Cet obscur objet du désir tracks the mechanisms of our fascination with the surfaces and simulacra of late capitalism. Closer to the object than the photograph, the work turns commodity fetishism on its head in favor of a new totemism.
With his Dichroics series, Thomas Devaux pursues and radicalizes his critique of marketing strategies by further investing in the tenuous link between various expressions of transcendence today. In the Rayons series, begun in 2016, subject and photographic process meet in an indiscernible that takes the place of a title. The "rays" evoke supermarket stalls as much as the optical technique used to chromatically dilate light beams. Resembling abstract expressionist paintings, his images photographically construct their object according to a surface frontality reduced to an opaque, even narcissistic reflection. His photographs loop the gaze back on itself in a consummate perception that has become an end in itself. The spectacle of our own vision - erected as an aim - is then consumed, like the absent faces in The Shoppers series. Presented as counterpoints, the individuals captured as they pass through the checkout emerge spectrally from a hazy black-and-white composition that dramatizes the signs of a consumerism based on capturing attention with gaudy, racy tones". (...) Marion Zilio, art critic and independent curator - Excerpt from Cet obscur objet du désir, a monograph devoted to Thomas Devaux published in 2023 (ed. Cédric Bacqueville).
Further information on the monograph Cet obscur objet du désir here
David De Beyter, Thomas Devaux, Bérangère Fromont & Jonathan Sullam
Paris, France
London, United Kingdom
Paris, France
CV
Né en 1980. Vit et travaille à Paris.
EXPOSITIONS PERSONNELLES
2024
Photo London, Galerie Bacqueville, London, United Kingdom
La Patinoire Royale, Brussels, Belgium
Art Central Hong Kong, Art Central, Hong Kong
2023
Paris Photo, Grand Palais Ephémère, Galerie Bacqueville, Paris, France
Art 021 Shanghai, China
PhotoFairs, Shanghai, China
2022
Parcours Saint-Germain Photo Days / Off Paris + by Art Basel 2022. Louis Vuitton Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, France (Galerie Bacqueville)
Art Taipei, Taiwan
Art Paris, Grand Palais Ephémère, Galerie Bacqueville, Paris, France
2021
PhotoFairs, Shanghai, China
Approche, Galerie Bertrand Grimont, Paris, France
2020
Nicéphore + - Biennale internationale de la photographie de Clermont-Ferrand, France
Cardi Projects, Cardi Gallery, London, UK & Milano, Italy
2019
Musée Charles Péguy, Orléans, France
Macadam Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Galerie Cédric Bacqueville, Lille, France
2018
Galerie Bertrand Grimont, Paris, France
2017
Galerie Bacqueville, Lille, France
2016
Galerie Rivière / Faiveley, Paris, France
Macadam Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2015
Baku, Azerbaidjan
Fotofever (Off Paris Photo), Carrousel du Louvre, Macadam Gallery, Paris, France
2014
Théâtre d’Angoulême, France
Macadam Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2013
Solo show, Fotofever (Off Paris Photo), Carrousel du Louvre, Macadam Gallery, Paris, France
Rencontres internationales de la photographie / Théâtre Antique, Arles, France
Brussels Fotofever (Photo Fair), Macadam Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Solo show, Moscow (Photo Fair), Russia
Gigli Project, Joyce Building, Hong Kong
2011
Solo show, Silencio (David Lynch), Paris, France
Gallery Gabriel & Gabriel, Paris, France
EXPOSITIONS COLLECTIVES
2024
KIAF Seoul (Off Frieze Seoul), Seoul, Korea
Art Brussels, La Patinoire Royale, Brussels, Belgium
PhotoFairs, Shanghai, China
Oυράνιο Φως, Galerie Valerie Delauney, Paris, France
BAD Bordeaux, La Patinoire Royale, Bordeaux, France
Art Paris, Galerie Bacqueville, Grand Palais éphémère, Paris, France
Art Central Hong Kong
BRAFA, La Patinoire Royale, Brussels, Belgium
2023
Art Taipei, Taiwan
KIAF Seoul, Seoul, Korea
June, Daegu, 2023, Korea
Busan, 2023, Korea
Art Paris 2023, Galerie Cédric Bacqueville, Paris, France
Art Rotterdam, Galerie Cédric Bacqueville, Rotterdam, Netherlands
BRAFA, La Patinoire Royale, Brussels, Belgium
2022
Art 021, Shanghai, China
Genius Loci - L’Appartement d’Auguste Perret, Galerie Bacqueville, Paris
Art Paris, Grand Palais Ephémère, Galerie Bacqueville, Paris, France
Art Rotterdam, Galerie Bacqueville, Netherlands
Art Taichung, Taiwan
Galerie A.M. Bjiere, New-York, USA
One Art Taipei, Taiwan
2021
Paradis Artificiels, Galerie Bacqueville, Lille, France
Art Taipei, Taiwan
Divines, Macadam Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Galerie Bertrand Grimont, Paris, France
Luxembourg Art Week, Macadam Gallery
Taipei, Taiwan
Nuit Blanche Mayenne, Le Kiosque - Centre d’Art Contemporain, Mayenne, France
Unseen, Galerie Bacqueville, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Galerie Bertrand Grimont, Paris, France
Paris Design Week, Galerie Bertrand Grimont, Paris, France
Art Paris, Grand Palais Ephémère, Galerie Bacqueville Paris, France
Duo Show, Macadam Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2020
Galerie Bertrand Grimont, Paris, France
Faux Semblants, Galerie Bacqueville, Lille, France
Art Paris, Grand Palais, Galerie Bacqueville, Paris, France
2019
Paris Photo, Grand Palais, Galerie Bertrand Grimont, Paris, France
Galeristes, Carreau du Temple, Galerie Bacqueville, Paris, France
Unseen, Westergas, Galerie Bacqueville, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Immatérialité, Espace Topographie de l’Art, Paris, France
Luxembourg Art Week, Macadam Gallery, Luxembourg
Photo London, Somerset House, Galerie Bacqueville, London, UK
Interior Design Exhibition, Macadam Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2018
Paris Photo, Grand Palais, Galerie Bertrand Grimont, Paris, France
YIA, Galerie Bacqueville, Paris, France
Biennale de l’Image Tangible, Paris, France
Macadam Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Art Paris, Grand Palais, Galerie Bacqueville, Paris, France
Lille Art Up, Grand Palais, Galerie Bacqueville, Lille, France
2017
YIA, Paris, Galerie Bacqueville, France
Macadam Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2016
Divine Décadence, Museum Van Gaasbeek, Belgium (with Jan Fabre, Joel Peter Witkin, De Bruyckere Berlinde, Gustave Moreau, Kees Von Dongen, Erwin Olaf…)
2015
St’Art, Strasbourg, Macadam Gallery, France
YIA, Galerie Rivière / Faiveley, Paris, France
Art Paris, Grand Palais, Galerie Rivière / Faiveley, Paris, France
2014
Paris Art is Hope, Piasa, Paris
Mois de la Photo Off, Paris, Atelier Tozf
Biennal of Photography, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège - BAL, Belgium
2013
Galerie Bacqueville, Lille, France
Le Christ dans la Photographie Contemporaine, Strasbourg, France
Lille Art Up, Galerie Bacqueville, Lille, France
2012
Leica, Paris, France
Salon de la photo, Paris, France
Slick - Contemporary Art Fair, Paris, Off Fiac
Ulsan International Photography Festival, South Korea
Dali International Photography Exhibition, China
Lille Art Fair, Galerie Bacqueville, Lille, France
BNF, Paris, France
2011
Cutlog - Contemporary Art Fair in Paris (Off Fiac)
Project « 24H Paris Photo », Showing at the Photo Off Fair
PRIX
2021
Soutien à la publication du Centre National des arts plastiques, CNAP, Galerie Bacqueville
2014
Lauréat du SFW Artist’s Award
2011
Lauréat de la Bourse du Talent #46 - Photographie.com
Nommé au Prix Art Contemporain - Arte
Nommé au Coup de coeur Photo - L’Express Style
RÉSIDENCES
2016
Résidence Louis Roederer, France
COLLECTIONS
Chaussee 36, Berlin
BNF - Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
Musée d’Orléans, Orléans
Louis Roederer
Huawei
CONFÉRENCES / PROJECTIONS
2017
Skema Lille, France
2016
Promenades photographiques de Vendôme, France (La photographie plasticienne, création et diffusion)
104 - CENTQUATRE, Paris. Projection « Work In Progress : Thomas Devaux » 26’
2015
Salon de la Photo « Grandes Conférences », Paris
MEP - Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris. Projection « Work In Progress : Thomas Devaux » 26’
2014
Conférence, Castle ЕĐŠЕGА, Serbia
Conférence, Musée des Beaux Arts de Lièges
Conférence, Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angoulême, France
2013
Conférence à la Cour Fanton, invité des Rencontres d’Arles
Conférence au Théâtre Antique, invité des Rencontres d’Arles
Projection. Los Angeles Mopla - Month of Photography Los Angeles : Projekt L.A.
Conférence Colloque Européen « Le Christ dans la Photographie Contemporaine », Université de Strasbourg, France
ÉDITIONS
Thomas Devaux, Cet obscur objet du désir, éd. Cédric Bacqueville, 2023
Michel Poivert, Contre-culture dans la photographie contempraine, éd. Textuels, 2023
Thomas Devaux, Attrition, éd. Galerie Gabriel & Gabriel, 2014