Light as material

I have always been drawn to artists who use light not simply to illuminate an object, but as a material in its own right.

What struck me most were Alexander Calder’s spatial works in thin wire and metal, which I saw at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. The line seems to step out of the drawing and begin to exist in real space. Under light, these constructions cast shadows that no longer read as a mere reflection of the object. They form a second image — sometimes more complex and expressive than the object itself.

It is this transition that interests me: from the real object to its shadow, from volume to plane, from a recognisable form to abstraction. The object is only half of the work; the other half is created by light.

In my photographs I explore a similar process. The object is a starting point, but light transforms it: it stretches proportions, multiplies contours, joins real and imagined spaces. At a certain moment it no longer matters what exactly stood in front of the camera. What matters is the new form that emerges from the interaction of object, light and shadow.

This is how I came to see photography not as a way of recording an object, but as a way of building a new visual construction out of reality.