Thirry Valencin - Blainville 2007

Born in 1962 in the Mâconnais region, 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 especially photographers gradually lead him to take up the camera himself.

Encouraged by the quality of his early shots, he perfects his technique through various assistantships — fashion magazines, TV studios, film shoots, album covers — while developing a personal writing style. From his first images, a mastery of the gaze asserts itself and will continue to deepen over the years. Despite the diversity of his experiences, his photographic journey remains remarkably coherent, faithful to an original intuition that runs through his entire body of work.

Back in France in 1995, he dedicates himself entirely to photography. His numerous travels nourish and confirm his vision. He then founds the Atelier Valencin, a place of research and production where he further develops the techniques of silver printing and elaborates 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 book gathering thirty-four photographs taken over more than twenty years, in India, Europe, the United States and France. Designed as a deliberate wander, this book bears witness to a receptive gaze, attentive to everything that happens, where each image becomes a moment of humanity and poetry.