ERIC CECCARINI
A meeting between a painter, a model and the photographer…
Extensive, both in time and scope; The Painters Project is an ongoing collection of collaborations with painters to whom Eric offers as a canvas some of the very best models he has enjoyed working with during his career.
For a number of these artists the project offers them a step in the dark, an escape into unknown territory. They must settle into a new environment with unfamiliar light, unusual shadows and highlights and a canvas that is not only three dimensional but alive, breathing and sentient. Movements and poses influence their strokes, they must discover, adapt and ultimately tame this canvas with their brush. Together, the body and the art become one to achieve the sublime.
To blend the often distinct viewpoints of different disciplines and work together; to mix various instruments, tools and angles is an uncommon, yet extremely rewarding and exciting approach, but also contrary to the eternal solitude of the artist, a commonly echoed mantra in the art sphere.
This unorthodox partnership gives birth to wonderful and often surprising creations. Magic succeeds when the ephemeral and volatile nature of paint on the human skin is forever captured through the lens and immortalised onto the image.
More than hundred meetings have already taken place with artists from the UK, Uruguay, Mauritius, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, the US, China, Venezuela, Russia and many other countries all across the globe.
A truly timeless and borderless artwork is born.
For More information : https://www.thepaintersproject.com/
Eric Ceccarini is represented for the first time in the USA by Galerie l'Atelier thanks to Galerie Hegoa Paris, France.
Nathalie Landaburu, 16 rue de Beaune, 75007 Paris
ERIC CECCARINI – PHOTOGRAPHER
Eric is a Belgian artist born in 1965. He gained a degree in photography from infac, brussels in 1987. Since then he has been a fashion photographer working with many of the top houses. Chopard, Elle, Marie-Claire, L’Oréal, Levi’s, Coca Cola, Virgin, Saab, Delvaux, Lowe Lintas and Ogilvy are some of his clients.
Among other distinctions, his photography for the Saab cabrio 9-3 campaign was awarded the Silver Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival.Eric is set apart from many of his colleagues by his way of shunning technical artifice and working in natural light. This results in soft, velvety, almost painterly images. In his artistic works, he captures women’s essence and soul, transcending mere physical representation.
In Eric’s “AMNIOS” series of soul portraits the models appear in suspended animation, as if they were about to be born, and full of hidden secrets. This represents a new conceptual departure for Eric, who began as a fashion photographer, moving on to classic artistic nudes, now showing us the nude in the ethereal form. These forms are certainly beautiful, yet a membrane separates them from us: is it to hide, or protect? In person, these works are monumental in scale, adding to their sense of restrained power.
In the “NUDES” series, Eric uses only natural light, just as a traditional painter would do in their study. Using slow exposure speeds which allow the lens more time to capture each model’s unique character, he reveals a sense of the sublime femininity, which borders on abstraction. Eric’s nudes are the same, yet different. They are all beautiful, yet their differences and unique qualities are magnified. “NUDES” is a series that celebrates the human form.
For “PAINTERS”, Eric collaborates with a different painter for each photograph. More than 100 of them have been invited throughout Europe and the other continents. The artist paints the model in their own style, while Eric searches for attitudes, then he photographs the result. In this way, the Painters series represents a fusion of two artistic visions – something that’s not always easy to achieve, yet this series epitomizes a sense of cohesion and dynamic synchronicity.
His work has been exhibited in Belgium, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, the US , China, Singapore, Mauritius, The Netherlands, and Spain.