III

Nature Divinité

Presence as apparition

“Looking for a long time changes the image.”

Nature Divinité · 2025

SeriesIII. Nature Divinité
Years2025
PlaceSacred forest of Ouidah, Benin
Body of work10 works (current set)
EditionEdition of 5 + 2 artist's proofs
TechniqueFine Art pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper, signed, numbered, with certificate of authenticity
AvailabilityOn request

Nature Divinité is a series that moves slowly. On purpose. I wanted a project that imposes nothing, that does not arrive with a conclusion already written.

It was born during my walks in the sacred forest of Ouidah, while I was looking for places for some of the images of Mouvement Sacré des Âmes. In the bark, the relief, the wounds of the wood and the tangle of roots, forms appeared. Presences seemed to emerge from the matter itself.

I photograph textures, lights, knots and lines, and sometimes something appears: a possible face, a silhouette. I do not always know whether this apparition belongs to the world or to the eye. That is precisely where the work begins.

The sacred forest of Ouidah is not a mere backdrop here. It already carries a spiritual, historical and symbolic charge. Yet the images seek neither to illustrate a belief nor to demonstrate a truth. They offer an experience of attention.

Into the series

The marks of time

The trees of the sacred forest bear the marks of time. Their hollowed bark, their healed wounds, their knots and distortions tell a story no one can fully reconstruct. Each photograph becomes an encounter between a material shaped by the years and a gaze trying to decipher its signs.

A red line beneath the bark

In several works, a red line runs through the matter: a scar, a breath, an ember. It recalls that something goes on living beneath the bark, even when everything seems still. In this chapter, presence comes neither from ritual nor from the night. It surfaces in the matter itself.

A place of interpretation

The forms that emerge from the wood are not answers. They are invitations to contemplate living matter differently, and to question the presences we think we recognise in it. The landscape becomes a place of interpretation. It does not preach. It answers gently whoever knows how to slow down.