Delphine
Margau
1. Welcome Delphine to The Influx Gallery family. Tell us a little bit about yourself and where you are from?
Thank you very much Influx Gallery for this welcome, this interest, this look at my work.
I was born in the French Alps, left, came back, stayed, until I left again. Because travel is part of my story. From Sweden to Morocco to Romania, and these 5 years in India before returning to Paris, and then finally settling in the south of France where my daughters were born. The journey has been intense and interior for the past few years. Going down to the bottom of yourself can take years, and it is powerful. Photography accompanies this descent into inner depths, towards an encounter with oneself at the same time as with the other. I have been an actress, a dancer, a yoga teacher. Until I redid a blank page with the birth of my daughters and let it emerge again. And photography came looking for me, as if to complete a circle. Or open it. Today writing and photography accompany me, are my extension, as much as the inner journey, this endless quest.
2/Were your family supportive of you deciding to become a photographic artist?
I never really decided to be a photographer. I have always done photography, instinctively, out of need, as a way of saying and expressing when I lacked the language I think, but I never thought of being a photographer. However, each time I got involved in projects as a comedienne, yoga teacher, dancer, or author, in the end there was always photography on the side, until it took center stage and my life, that it take its place, almost without my deciding it, because the visions were strong, it was necessary to give substance to interior images, and giving space to these images was vital. Perhaps the photo decided for me. Or maybe it was me who had a hard time giving him his place, because I didn't feel legitimate, because I didn't go to photography school and I'm not a technician. What interests me is the gaze, it is the soul in everything (it is to probe the soul in everything). But even today, there is not only photography, I feel multiple, and feel as much author as photographer and researcher on the path of the human soul. I have always made my way, despite all my weaknesses, the call has always been stronger, and my path is a series of decisions in relation to what I felt and in relation to a call of the moment. Everything might seem disjointed. In the end everything seems right. As if we could be reborn to ourselves as many times as life offers us, as many times as necessary.
3/ Was there anything specific that you can remember that made you want to become a photographer?
I was an observer. I still am. It is my way of being and of getting in touch. It's a way of taking a step back, of anchoring oneself, for a sensitive person that anything could upset. A light can overwhelm me, a look penetrate me, a detail obsess me, I let things enter in me, it's a handicap as much as it is precious.
I first wanted to try to capture what could not be seen in the image but which was so present, as if to prove to myself that what was invisible was present, as if to prove to myself that I wasn't completely mad.
I was trying to capture what was invisible. To photograph at the end was to try to show what was not seen, what could not be seen, but which was so present. It is perhaps this need to see, to probe beyond what is visible that brought me to photography. The need to keep track, proof.
4. Did your schooling or work affect your creative development in any way?
The French School system was difficult for me. It tended to make me lose confidence in my abilities, in what I had, in my creativity. The school locked me up because they probably couldn't fit me in, put me in a box that was acceptable to them, in a box that they could understand and control. I am probably always looking for a workspace in which what I am would be welcome and could express itself. Writing and photography are moving more and more together in me. They are spaces of freedom, freedom of being. Projects are in progress without necessarily that one and the other come together within the same project in the concrete, but in the visions they respond to each other.
5. When did you first discover photography?
I remember my father and his travel photos that he showed us with slides and an old projector. And then all our childhood photos. It is a strong memory because unlike my memory which tried to erase a whole part of my childhood, the photos remained and showed me that there had been a childhood of which I had no memories. The photos showed me a space-time that for me had not existed.
And then I remember a little photography internship as a teenager with a street photographer. We walked the streets, on the lookout, the camera in hand, then we returned to debrief on the images. I remember a joy during those few days. Walking in silence, looking like a radar, probing the soul in everything, already.
6. Can you tell us a little about your favourite exposure style?
Today, my only device is my phone. It's kind of my particularity. Finding myself without a camera, I used the constraints of the phone as a challenge. So I don't have a lot of scope for action, I can't do everything, I juggle with constraints. I stuck with this phone to see how far I could go. Could I create images without a device?… The phone itself may not be enough, but combined with the processing applications that exist, it opens up other possibilities. I have a preference according to each image of what the image tells, of the moment. I think the most important thing for me is that the image tells me a story. And depending on the story, the chosen exhibition is at the service of this story.
7. Do you have a favourite piece of work? And why does it hold a place in your heart?
I don't have a favorite work, I’m never tired of discovering, there are so many talents, so many beautiful people. But I love the work of Fiona Louise Larkins so much. It touches me deeply, it takes me to another space-time, it contains all the subjects that are close to my heart, nature, the wild, women, a depth that black and white sublimates. We feel a vibrant and deep soul behind these images.
8. We love your beautiful take on fine art photographic portraiture. How would you describe your own unique personal style?
I'm not sure if I am in a position to be able to describe my style. The outside gaze often teaches me more about what I do, or what is perceived. I don't measure everything. And then no one perceives quite the same thing. Once the image is shown, it no longer belongs to me. It belongs to those who watch it, and they are surely more likely to talk about it, to appropriate it to tell their own story. I have often experienced returns in the order of love or rejection. Probably because I work with human shadows. The dark part of being human. There too, what is hidden, what we hide deep inside us. I do not claim to understand everything about the human soul of course, especially not, but trying to welcome the shadows in me, and in return to receive the lights, is a path that opens up so many perceptions and feelings.
And then I would say that I cannot live without poetry and beauty. And I hope these portraits reflect that.
9. Where do you get your inspiration and influences from?
Undoubtedly the movement of life is a great inspiration. Like nature that I cannot dissociate from souls. One being the reflection of the other. The faces and the beings that I meet. The stories that are told. In this sense, literature is probably one of my inspirations.
I am not influenced by anything and everything. Marguerite Duras said "If we knew something about what we were going to write, before doing it, before writing, we would never write. It wouldn't be worth it. » I think that's what I also live with photography. If I knew everything in advance, maybe I wouldn't have to. We know and we don't know. There must remain a part of mystery, a part of research and discovery for the desire to continue to imagine, to create.
10. Do you have any tips for any inspiring digital artist/photographer who is using software, or picking up a camera for the first time?
To try to align the gaze with the heart first. Look with the heart. To tell a story. What do we mean. I admit that what matters to me in an image is not the technique in the first place, it is to have something to say, to tell, to show, and the creativity and the personality that accompany this story. Looking at what is shown. What does this gaze, this angle of view, this distance or this proximity also say about the photographer. We may think of hiding behind a lens, but the image reveals so many things that often exceeds us, the image speaks as much about what is shown as about who is behind the lens.
11. Your works are the embodiment of poetic yet complex storytelling. Is your creative vision pre-planned, or do you experiment whilst in the process of creating?
I often have a starting point. But then, I experience the present moment, with what presents itself in the moment, what emerges, what transforms. Sometimes the photo at the end has nothing to do with the initial vision. Life gave me something else. Or sometimes nothing. I accept the nothing as a step towards another image, as a process. Was it me who was not receptive, or should I continue to dig into the idea, to develop it. I believe that what I do artistically is never cut off from my evolution. Everything I do that I undertake is part of my path of evolution. The photo is also a mirror of what I am at a given moment, what I'm looking for, what I'm trying to clear up.