TURNER GALLERIES... 2016 EXHIBITIONS

"I find Christophe Canato's images immediately arresting for their deep beauty and mystery. The strange yet familiar portraits are as pure and innocent as they are menacing, bestial and childlike, yet always composed with great elegance."
sean tobin, 2016

French-Australian Christophe Canato lives and works in Perth, Western Australia. He was born in France in 1966, and grew up in an artistic family environment where his father was a painter. As an early drawer and painter himself, he successfully entered the Beaux-Arts school at seventeen years of age and studied Visual Arts. Christophe received his DNSEP in 1989 (comparable to a Master degree in Fine Arts) and in 1993 a Diploma of Fashion from the prestigious Institut Francais de la Mode (French Fashion Institute) in Paris. After working freelance in the Paris fashion industry, photography became his favoured tool to express himself as an artist.

In 1997 Christophe won first prize in the Paris Salon de la Jeune Creation, and began his career as an artist in earnest. In 2005 he moved to Perth and quickly established himself as an artist to watch, winning a Town of Vincent Art Award that year. Since then he has continued to exhibit extensively in Australia and overseas.

Ricochet is a photographic series that he completed in 2013, exhibiting it in Anna Pappas Gallery in Melbourne and the Queensland Centre for Photography in 2014, and in the Singapore Fringe Festival in 2016. It is now Perth's turn to view these hauntingly beautiful images. Ricochet is comprised of images of children and still life objects. Each is beautifully lit in against an inky background. Accompanying these are two dark landscapes, each with a foreground habitat; an anthill and a hideout. A video work from this series will also be on display.

The lack of background detail, the unadorned black clothing, and Christophe's choice of subject matter, all combine to create timeless images. This is perhaps an unrealistic portrayal of contemporary youth, with today's clutter of toys and technology. These are wistful, poetic memories of that time in childhood where you have newfound freedoms, days filled with curiosity and adventure, and the angst of adolescence is still some time away. Individually, these photographs attempt to capture those fleeting moments from childhoods past, the mesmerising time the ocean is first heard in a seashell, or the simplicity of placing a thorn on a nose to conjure a dragon or perhaps a rhino. As Alasdair Foster noted, "It is an age of becoming. A voyage already begun; the maternal haven to stern and the churn of adolescence still to come. It is a time when the brain is plastic; knowledge is sketchy but tacked together with the rich embroidery of the imagination. These are the dog days before puberty."

Like the ricochet of a bullet, or the skipping of a stone over water, these images bounce between different childhood experiences. From finding the treasures of a mother of pearl button, the skeletal remains of a frog, or the brilliant feathers on a dead parrot bejewelled in droplets of water, to watching a pair of snails mating, or building a hideout from branches and leaves, these are the experiences that open our eyes to the wonder of the world, the start of comprehending life and death, finding beauty in small places, and delighting in boundless imagination. This is the preparation for adulthood, where sadly the wonder and enchantment found in the everyday diminishes. I do not see these as portraits, or even descriptions of the artist's own childhood memories, but rather, a set of keys to open the past for all viewers.

ricochet [mouse] edition 2/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,900
ricochet [two boys] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 90 x 60cm 2013 $1,600	ricochet [with orange] edition 2/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 90 x 60cm 2013 $1,900
ricochet [boy with horns] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 90 x 60cm 2013 $1,600	ricochet [boy with bear mask] edition 2/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 90 x 60cm 2013 $1,900
ricochet [boy with fox] edition 2/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 90 x 60cm 2013 $1,900	ricochet [boy with black ink] edition 2/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 90 x 60cm 2013 $1,900
ricochet [boy with flowers] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 90 x 60cm 2013 $1,600	ricochet [boy with shell] edition 2/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 90 x 60cm 2013 $1,900
ricochet [boy with thorns] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 90 x 60cm 2013 $1,600	ricochet [parrot] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,600
ricochet [dry reptiles] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,600
ricochet [shelter] edition 2/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,900	ricochet [stump] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,900
ricochet [nest] edition 2/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,900	ricochet [tooth and buttons] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,600
ricochet [handkerchief] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,600	ricochet [two snails] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,600
ricochet [dandelion clock] edition 1/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,600	ricochet [sycamore seed] edition 2/6 archival inkjet print, acrylic face mounted 60 x 90cm 2013 $1,900
digging edition of 6 4 min, 3 sec video 2013 $1,900	gesture edition of 6 3 min, 24 sec video 2013 $1,900