Jean-François Rauzier’s HyperphotosEver since finishing the Louis Lumière School, Jean-François Rauzier hascontinued his personal research, even while leading a career in advertising.In 2002, his artistic photography takes an innovative turn when he invents theHyperphoto.Rauzier creates this concept which from then on defines the work to which heconsecrates all his creative efforts.Between installation and photography, the Hyperphoto is a digital re-compositionof thousands of photos, natural or urban landscapes: a giant hyperrealist puzzle.His images, therefore “fabricated” on the computer, are exposed in very largeformat prints. Aside from their monumental size (Plage des Souvenirs is 20meters long), the panoramic images of Jean-François Rauzier are recognized bythe multitude of details within, fragments sometimes so miniscule that only avery meticulous observer will notice. The prodigious depth of field that the Hyperphoto technique allows turns thecaptured instant into a realist painting. “My hyperphotos are the realization of anold dream that would be impossible without digital technology: to see the bigpicture and at the same time the close-up, to stop time and be able to examineall the details of the fixed image.” The first Hyperphotos represent large panoramas of nature: Fields and crops,land modeled by human beings (Champ d’Orge, Colza) and bare landscapes(Fauteuil Solitaire), sometimes water scenes (Conference de Burano). Rauzieraffirms his desire to create original compositions. However, the nature he revealshas nothing to do with the original, a paradox he himself underlines. It’s theopposite of savage: it’s soft, organized, composed. The artist likes geometry: “The fields fascinate me by their calm regularity, thesolid and appeasing rhythm they impose on the landscape.” Often a road snakesthrough the field compositions (Aller-retour, Champs du Soir, Epouvantials).Man’s imprint is evident, especially that made by machines: cultivation, traces of vehicles crossing the barley.. Then comes the artist’s imprint: artificial colors,improbably skies.. Going beyond untouched, these landscapes are idealized,dreamed. This is the paradox of Rauzier’s photos. The artificial takes over the natural.Even though, the sentiment of virginity clearly exists: this perfected nature,retouched beyond limits, becomes completely separated from reality until finallyappearing pure, idyllic. Jean-François Rauzier’s work can be divided into different cycles:-The fairy-like ambiance of the first Hyperphotos becomes more and moreevident.

-The purity fades, the more colored and sophisticated décors become darker.-Anecdotes and humoristic details are multiplied. Looking at a hyperphotobecomes a game. One searches, looking for the artist’s hints sprinkledthroughout the image, seeing a field mouse, a deer, a snail on a leaf. Amusingto find a woman’s undergarments behind a bale of hay (Péché Originel), or a birdstaring at us… The strange atmosphere in a composition like “Evasion” is a witness to Rauzier’sattachment to surrealism and the incongruous. In “Fauteuil Solitaire” onediscovers an armchair sitting in the middle of a field. In “La Conference deBurano” the armchairs, many of them this time, float in the water. Who hung thebirdcage on the branch of the lonely tree in the poppy field? The artist’s interest for hardly seen details echoes his affinity for hidden objectsand meanings. His images expose the unexplainable and irrational. Referencesto mysteries, legends, and secrets reveal a tendency toward mysticism. The “original sin” context and symbols appear often: the bitten apple, the snake.In “Commemoration” a small painting of the Virgin Mary suckling Jesus is placedat the bottom of a tree. The biblical references show a passion for myth andfable. In “Port Jerôme” (among others), he takes Alice from her wonderland andplaces her in his own universe just as wonderful, and worrisome. “Hiver inVersailles” evokes the passage of the Little Red Riding Hood. We find the wolf watching in the snowy forest and a lost red scarf on the white ground. The Hyperphotos are enigmas for which we must reconstitute the story behindthe scene. With the symbols being the narration tools and the details being theclues, Rauzier draws the paths to follow.Waiting is another recurring theme that the artist treats clearly in “Souffle deVérité”. In general, this sentiment is suggested by abandoned objects. Buckets,books, teddy bears, bicycles, etc. are there where someone must surely come by.While waiting, everything is immobile, time is suspended.In “On Time” the artist expresses the same trepidation facing the passage of time, taking his revenge with humor by becoming its measure, the sundial. Thegrains of sand are replaced by a mass of used alarm clocks that “also are subjectto the wear and tear of time and die useless.” The desolated landscapes of “Bicyclettes Abandonnées” and “La mémoire de lamer” slip into a melancholy and poetry darkened by Rauzier’s mood. One feelsdanger near, a catastrophe about to arrive. Sometimes the disaster has alreadytaken place (“Car Crash”) or is taking place then and there (“Le Retour deSteven”). The sweet harmony of “Barley Field” contrasts with the terrible chaosof “Tempête at Omaha Beach”. This is the ambivalence found in the work of Jean-François Rauzier. It hesitatesbetween classic harmonious beauty and an overt melancholic expression. Itstarts to reveal less smooth and unanimous images. His poet’s soul takes over

with creations that are less evident, more disturbing, and infinitely rich. The workevolves little by little toward more and more sophisticated constructions. Heenriches the imaginary in his Hyperphotos and develops the artificial. At thesame time, he moves the center of interest from fields to cities. “For the pastthree years my work has been a form of introspection, like an initiation path, thatnow brings me to the giant urban landscapes of New York.”In 2005, he creates the image “Liberté Surveillée”, a portrait of New York afterSeptember 11

. Among the details is the Statue of Liberty behind a fence, andthe artist himself and his double, both with binoculars, evoking the theme of surveillance, control. This is where Rauzier initiates the use of the auto portrait, the beginning of a newsymbolic dimension of his work. His character in a black hat, coat, andsunglasses are now constantly present.Sometimes it is the principal subject, such as in “On Time”. Planted in the centerof the image, the artist is the master, leader of the enigma of the alarm clockbeach. This silhouette of a modern witch, a prophet,a sentinel or guard, isrepeated at different places in the image.In “Dernières Nouvelles” he gives a press conference, seated at the same tableas several of his clones. Multiplied, he gains force and imposes himself as apredicator. The scene is stressful and solemn; something important is beingannounced…When the artist hides himself in his fictions, this constant presence inspires thesame tension. He places himself at the heart of his “world images” as their grandinstigator (“Bibliothèque Idéale).Always in the mystical vain that haunts him, he plays with the assimilationbetween the creator (the artist) and the Creator (God). An ambiguous god sincehe is equally associated with destruction, of which one can imagine he is not onlythe announcer. His aura inspires danger and his apocalyptic style evokes the endthat is coming (“Nuit d’Eté”) or a witness of a past catastrophe (“Terminus”, the“Babels”, “Cité Idéale”, “Cité-Taguée”).In making himself a principal character of his Hyperphotos, Jean-François Rauzierattests to a kind of demiurge, grand architect and animator of the universe.Mary Baldo