Thomas Devaux

Thomas Devaux (b. 1980, Marcq-en-Barœul) is a Paris-based artistic photographer.

Biography
Devaux has been interested in photography from a very young age. While studying film, he experimented with several other mediums including photography, experimental filmmaking, painting and collages. His current work lies somewhere between photography and painting, allowing him to pursue his research on sacred themes, profanity, and isolation.

In 2011, he won the Bourse du Talent #46 competition, organised by Photographie.com, Nikon, Picto, Herez and Bibliothèque Nationale de France. That same year, he was nominated for the “Prix Arte/Cutlog Art contemporain”.

In January 2012, filmmaker David Lynch exhibited Devaux's photos during the inauguration of his new Paris nightclub, Silencio. For Le Figaro, "his portraits of women taken at fashion shows and art openings, which are then digitally reworked, have a timeless grace that denounces with elegance the ephemeral character of beauty... Madonnas damned for all eternity."

His photographs are included in several collections including Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF). In 2013 Devaux's work was exhibited in South Korea, China, France, Belgium, Russia and Hong Kong. He was invited to present his work during the antiquity theater soirées held during the Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles 2013.





Artistic process
In the words of Anne Biroleau-Lemagny, General Curator for 21st Century Contemporary Art at Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), "Thomas Devaux is the author of several ambitious and complex series in which so many fundamental values, like evolution in photography come into play. The photography’s index value cannot be denied. It is indeed a direct shot but a shooting immediately considered as a fragment of a future reconstruction." One of his ways of working involves taking simple photos of models at fashion shows in Paris or Milan, or indeed even pictures of regular visitors at the openings of contemporary art expositions, such as at the FIAC, and using them as raw materials. He transforms them, thanks to digital editing software, making them barely recognisable.

According to the French newspaper L'Express, he uses fashion and the art world to “recompose a universe filled with symbols”.

For Yann Datessen, a photography and crafts professor at the Sorbonne, Devaux's characters are “ether beauties, flannel monstrosities, latescent Valkyries, patched-up ghosts that we sanctify and profane at the same time... Likes burned, worn-out, gone up in smoke, these new magnetic and electrified bodies have the boreal appearance of worrisome divinities. Hydras with furry tongues, spectral face, torsos with seven hands, female Cerberus, the bestial that Thomas evokes is filled with Dante-esque and Tartarian metamorphoses..."

Works

 * TEARING (2005-2012)
 * ATTRITION I (2009-2017)
 * ATTRITION II (2011-2017)
 * RELIQUARIES (2016)
 * THE SHOPPERS (2014-2017)
 * RAYONS (2016-2024)
 * DICHROICS (2019-2024)

Solo shows

 * La Patinoire Royale, April- May, 2024, Brussels
 * Art Central Hong Kong, 28 - 31 March 2024, Hong Kong
 * OFFSCREEN, La Patinoire Royale, 18 - 22 October 2023, Paris
 * KIAF Seoul (Off Frieze Seoul), 6 - 9 September 2023, Seoul
 * PhotoFair, 20 - 23 April 2023, Shanghai
 * Art Taipei, 21 - 24 October 2022, Taipei
 * Louis Vuitton St- Germain-des-prés, Paris, Parcours St Germain + Photo days, off Paris + by Art Basel 2022  17 - 31  October, France (Galerie Cedric Bacqueville Lille, Pays-Bas)
 * Art Paris, 7  - 10  April 2022, Paris
 * PhotoFair, 3 - 6 November, Shanghai
 * Approche, Galerie Bertrand Grimont, 26 - 30 May 2021, Paris
 * Centre Photographique de Clermont Ferrand, Biennale de la Photo Nicephore, 10 - 31 October 2020, Paris
 * Musée Charles Péguy, July & August 2019, Orléans
 * Macadam Gallery, 14 June - 30 June 2019, Brussels
 * Galerie Cédric Bacqueville, 31 January - 10 March 2019, Lille
 * Galerie Bertrand Grimont, 10 May - 16 June 2017, Paris
 * Galerie Bacqueville, 23 February - April 2017, Lille
 * Ulsan International Photography Festival (KOREA) 2012
 * Salon de la photo de Paris 2012, série Usures 2012
 * Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF), série Attrition 2012

Duo shows

 * PhotoFair, 25 - 28 April 2024, Shanghai
 * PARIS PHOTO 2023, (Galerie Cedric Bacqueville Lille, Pays-Bas), 9 - 12 November, Grand Palais Ephémère
 * Macadam Gallery, 28 April - May 2021, Brussels