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                         --FRENCH ARTIST VINCENT CHERIB--

    Observe a broken sidewalk, a warn carpet on which children once played, a discarded keyboard, a surgical scar.  

    All carry tales they might never tell. 

    French artist Vincent Cherib captured the stories of abandoned warehouses and shutdown factories—among other locations—and immortalizes them with color in his photographic exhibition Disaster Recovery. 

    The heart of the project is hope. 

    I liked the idea of captivating a moment, of keeping a souvenir,” he says. While he didn’t intend to become an artist, he admits, “It’s a passion, almost vital for me, as much as music.” 

    Cherib photographed abandoned and soon-to-be-demolished factories and warehouses to capture their former usefulness and their imminent demise. 

    “I sometimes rework my photos and transform them to get different perspectives,” Cherib says.   

    Cherib plays with colors to create an abstract image from a picture or forms color intensity and variety into a silkscreen effect.

    

    DISASTER RECOVERY #18 is a striking contrast of red/orange and turquoise that render a woman’s face inanimate. Has she recovered from an experience or is she heading towards one?   Her pain, longing and relief are both intensified and nullified by unnatural hue. 

    Precisely what Cherib wanted to convey. 

    He notes the woman’s face and expression and contrasts the figurative aspect and the abstract—graffiti under her eye could be a tear or an eyelash. 

    “My photos are very much linked to my emotion of the moment, to the way I feel at a given time,” Cherib says.  “I feel alive when I shoot (a picture), like I’m living fully in the real present, which gives me the opportunity to consider the future serenely.”

    Cherib, a native of Brittany, lives in Rennes, where he recently began to show his work in various venues.  During his teenage years he developed a love of photography sparked by his discovery of—and fascination with—various painters and their work:  The sweetness, poetry and color of Marc Chagall, Klee’s geometry and pastel colors, likewise the colors and details in Hundertwasser. 

    I was referred to www.wikipedia.org when Cherib mentioned Banksy, a renowned 30-something street graffiti artist who stencils and paints.  See I told you I know little about art and got some education while writing this article.  Wikipedia calls his work “often-satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics.” 

    “On the walls are often messages with many meanings,” Cherib says. “I love his perceptivity, his intelligence.”

    Andy Warhol was friend and mentor to Brooklyn native Jean-Michel Basquiat, who created collages on canvas and is another Cherib favorite as is Daniel Johnston. 

    I admit I researched his site more than I did others and agree with Cherib that he can be scary however I’m also touched by his drawings. They’re simple and yet pained. 

    A recurring theme is no man’s land to keep a living trace—and express the soul—of a dying or lifeless place. 

    “I'm quite curious,” Cherib admits.  “I like to look around me when I walk along the streets or elsewhere . . . to spot interesting sites to photograph this way.”

                 
          


    One of my favorites in the collection is DISASTER RECOVERY #3.  

    Through a jagged-edged window embedded in a wall alive with colorful graffiti one sees sun-splattered greenery.  Interestingly the angle of the sun against the wall’s inner corner detaches it from—and joins it with—nature outside.            

    “Taking pictures is often a way to meditate,” Cherib says.  “I need to be alone in these empty sites to be able to focus my attention. Silence is essential.” 

    He recalls a time he was accompanied by someone on a photo shoot. 

    “My inspiration was almost absent,” he says. “Dogs barking in the distance even troubled me once."



                 

    Another favorite is SHADOWS, WINDOWS, BRICKS AND LIGHT #40, which reveals the sky (world) outside the tiny arched window through which sunlight reflects surprisingly on the wall.  My eye is drawn to the almost-female-shaped graffiti that looks as if it’s turned towards the window. 

    “The presence of the sun is essential: it's often about cold and lifeless places, not really reassuring, quite ugly and meaningless to most of the people,” Cherib says.  The sun allows him to play with colors and shades, to create contrasts and to give life anew. 

    A writer will type a rough draft of thoughts and ideas then will edit and rewrite; so Cherib visits then returns several times. 

    The first time, he says, “Is often a means to appropriate the place, to consider what will be workable. 

    “I always need to come back an average of two or three times, waiting a few days in-between each shot,” he says, “first to look from afar and gain perspective, then to take into account the position of the sun.” 

    His last visit is to explore and discover what went unnoticed the first time.  

    “Photography encompasses past, present and future,” he says. 

    Each time I look at one of his photographs I see it for the first time, like with DISASTER RECOVERY #28.  It’s an endless tunnel and looks less intimidating than it is because of the gentle color, real versus surreal.  Appearances can be deceiving; does the pinkish-red light on the left wall warn or beckon? 



                

     A similar light emanates from a doorway at the bottom of the three-story psychedelic landing in DISASTER RECOVERY #20.

    These are but a few of Cherib’s photographs; to see the entire Disaster Recovery exhibit visit www.myspace.com/vincentcherib. 

     “Because of MySpace, a formidable source of information, I discovered plenty of incredible talents,” he says.  To see them all, visit his page!