Thirry Valencin - Blainville 2007

Born in 1962 in the Mâconnais, Thierry Valencin, after several years spent in French Polynesia, leaves France for Germany, where he stays for almost ten years. In Frankfurt and then Munich, he founds the Demi-Lune photography gallery, thus discovering the cultural and artistic milieu of the city. His meetings with painters, writers, filmmakers, theater people and above all photographers gradually lead him to pick up the camera himself.

Encouraged by the quality of his early shots, he perfects his technique through various assistantships — fashion magazines, TV sets, film shoots, album covers — while developing a personal writing. From his early images there manifests a mastery of the gaze which will continue to deepen over the years. Despite the diversity of his experiences, his photographic journey remains of remarkable coherence, faithful to an initial intuition that runs through his entire body of work.

Returning to France in 1995, he dedicates himself entirely to photography. His numerous travels nourish and confirm his eye. He then founds the Atelier Valencin, a place of research and production where he further deepens the techniques of silver printing and develops a very personal conception of blur. In his work, grain, light, and shadow do not describe the image: they make it appear, revealing the intimacy of landscapes, objects and bodies.

In 2010, he publishes Au bord de l’autre, a volume bringing together thirty-four photographs taken over more than twenty years, between India, Europe, the United States and France. Conceived as a voluntary drift, this book testifies to a receptive gaze, attentive to all that occurs, where each image becomes a moment of humanity and poetry.