Thomas Devaux

Thomas Devaux was born in 1990 and now lives and works in Paris.

The artist defines himself as a visual photographer. He has produced several complex series in which tradition and modernity intermingle. His photographs, which have the appearance of oils on canvas, serve as a support for his research into the profane and the sacred. He also deals with the theme of transcendence, which appears in his early work.

In his “Dichroic” series, he took his work a step further by incorporating dichroic glass into his photographs. Dichroic glass is a material that changes color according to its orientation. Thomas Devaux discovered it during his research into a precious material (“pre-cieux”) that could last over time and enable him to work with light. It was developed as a result of NASA research, has a very high reflectivity index and can therefore be used on satellites or to reflect lasers, for example.

The use of this material gives the work a more vertical and surprising composition. It integrates the viewer’s body by melting it into the color, and it is possible to see oneself through the work when in the position of the observer.  The physical and formal confrontation with the viewer reveals a buried part: that of the “magical primitivism” crystallized by the totem form. In his Totem series, he not only uses color abstraction, but also a very thin format, far removed from photographic standards.