Thierry Valencin - Amsterdam

Born in 1962 in the Mâconnais, Thierry Valencin, after several years spent in French Polynesia, leaves France for Germany, where he stays for nearly ten years. In Frankfurt and then in Munich, he founds the Demi-Lune photography gallery, thereby discovering the city’s cultural and artistic circles. His encounters with painters, writers, filmmakers, theatre people and especially photographers gradually lead him to pick up the camera himself.

Encouraged by the quality of his early shots, he perfects his technique through various assistanthoods — fashion magazines, television sets, film shoots, record sleeves — while developing a personal voice. 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 of remarkable coherence, faithful to an initial intuition that runs through the entirety of his work.

Back in France in 1995, he dedicates himself fully to photography. His numerous travels nourish and confirm his vision. He then founds l’Atelier Valencin, a place of research and production where he further develops the techniques of silver-based printing and crafts 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 gathering thirty-four photographs taken over more than twenty years, from India, Europe, the United States and France. Designed as a voluntary wandering, this book bears witness to a ready and attentive gaze to whatever comes, where each image becomes a moment of humanity and poetry.