Dominique Sarraute, daughter of Nathalie Sarraute, French writer of Russian origin, is passionate about industrial engineering. Originally a painter and photographer, she offers since several years her artistic talents to the big names in the industry who want to sublimate their products. With a tireless enthusiasm Sarraute shows us another life of industrial objects, giving them a rich and colorful imagination, mysterious and psychedelic, which rejects their banality or function as an accessory.
It started with a poster of an electric battery that she noticed while waiting in a subway station. This battery looked lifeless, flat and depressed. Sarraute, who looks to objects with the eyes of a painter, wanted to place these mass products in a different spatial context, and thus offer them the opportunity to show their qualities and dynamics while rejecting their banality. Sarraute has attention to detail, but without depriving the objects of their identity. Zooming in on a detail creates a whole new universe.
The theme: industrial mass products, intended to be used and not looked at. This purely utilitarian function gives them their extreme rigor and accuracy. The object is perfectly clear, recognizable, but recreated with a new life. The object refers only to itself. She tries to show the objects in a different way, giving them a different reality, so that the viewer might see them differently and discover their beauty.
About the artwork
About the artist
Dominique Sarraute, Lives and works in Paris, France - www.dominique-sarraute.fr
Education: Painting
Dominique Sarraute did not follow a course in photography. She finds it even difficult to understand that such (long) courses exist, and does not believe in the necessity of expensive professional equipment to make good pictures. She also claims to have no style nor technique. The objects to be photographed are put on a table and subjected to lighting effects, but always respecting the object which much remain recognizable in the final image.
Since 30 years Dominique Sarraute works for the most prestigious European companies. Her photographs illustrate annual reports, agendas, calendars and posters, and were used as decoration in companies and in exhibitions. In New Zebra hangs a series of ultra-sharp images of glass fibers, which displays a colorful and rich spectrum of varied shapes. The artificial fibers give us the illusion of an underwater world.