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born
en 1955
 He
is not a photographer but, as he is pleased to
say, he goes in for photography. Because he
combines the technique of the professional with
the original joy of the dilettante (in the
proper meaning of the Italian word, present
participle of "dilletaro" - delight -
, hence "the one who practise an art for
love"). For the pleasure of the
photographic art or rather of the "photografrica"
art.
Because Alain PARIS unceasingly puts this
continent in images. For nearly fifteen years
now, the major part of his productions has been
devoted to Senegal. "Bush
studio",
"Seetsi", "Black Mirages"
are various facets of the same passion for a
world that fascinates and moves him.
After a stay in Africa,
Alain PARIS might return with only one or two
"rolls". From his many travels in the
"black" continent, he has brought only
a few pictures of the landscape ("ten, at
the very most"), of traditional feasts or
other such "exotic" snapshots. Because
he needs Africa, it's often only a scenery for
his photos.
Since 1989, and without interrupting his trips,
Alain PARIS has lived shut in a studio to "shoot"
his Africa. Here and there. With "Montreuil
on the stage"
(associated with another photographer), he has
realized a surprising "trombinoscope"
of the African population of Montreuil.
Bush
studio,
series realized with a medium-format camera in a
daylight studio, shows his attachment to the
small village of Kafountine (Casamance). It's
there that he has created the first "Bush
photography" school in 1989.
His Africa is not the "phantom
Africa". It is neither the Africa of the
ethnologists, the poets or the journalists. It
is neither modern nor ancestral, neither poor
nor corrupted, neither glad nor sad. It is a
woman, a mother or a lover, nude, strange and
sensual. Alain PARIS gives us to see what Africa
has probably the most beautiful and obvious to
offer, that nobody else would be able to
describe.
A belly: The fertile one of a mother or the
stretched skin of a dancer? Hands: Of an Ashanti
princess of Ghana, or those of a Diola farmer of
Casamance?
A nape: The one of an amazon warrior of Congo or
those of a Parisian top-model? Litheness of the
bodies, openness of a look, purity of Africa to
which these "Black
Mirages"
refer, his last realization.
Alain Paris is not only in love with Africa.
Since he has invited Africa in his dark room, he
is being told to be... his lover.
Régis
MICHEL
(journalist)
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