Since the seventies, the elegant and memorable photographs of French artist Sarah Moon are an inherent part of the international fashion world. Scarcely anybody will be able to elude the particular magic of her works, like those for Dior, Chanel, or Cacharel. Sarah returned to Dior by way of Kris Van Assche in 2008, with a series of shadowy images of painter and filmmaker Jacques Monory.
A noted fan of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Moon’s works often escape the field of fashion, becoming mysterious and sensuous journeys. Her images in A#7 come as various angles and formats, the final image in colour while the others are black and white, offering a semblance of a polished ’scrapbook’ vision. In each image, her subject is carried through thematically as a character – bound by his wide-brimmed hat – as he either walks a lonely road, is accompanied in a blurred abstract shot by his wife Paule, or seated alone in a deep green leafy garden.
Her use of chiaroscuro techniques is hauntingly beautiful, portraying this artist in a style somewhat disconnected from his own ‘narrative figuration’ style [preceding Pop art in the 1960s], especially in the below triptych of dark to light profile portraits.
In Moon’s work, Monory becomes part of a dark fairytale, a wise face with a quiet smile.
