Project Info:
Are not merely guardian angels, placed on Earth to look after mortals. They remember the beginning of time. They reflect the solitude of God, who created everything without witness; the angel’s role is to see.
It’s great to live by the spirit, to testify day after day relentlessly to the goodness of the soul. Sometimes we see the lurking evidence of divine existences. Angels that have been forever hovering above us, judging, watching; sometimes they lean over the ends of heaven and fall to earth. They enter and show us the road to perpetuity, but they are tied to earth as we are. Chained, but so desperate to fly, humans can only take a plane, but we must return. Or die in space.
Listen and you can almost hear a gust of wind when you walk in shadows. It is the sound of a broken wing flapping, beckoning you to enter. The photographer sits at her empty post and spies her first angel. Time stops. They gaze inwards each time they appear.
They exist with broken wings bruised by life. They are the fallen angels who plunged to earth. Some angels are only visitors, offering a fleeting glance, a knowing smile, acknowledging “we know you, you are one of us.”
It was a pretense. Wrestling with one, allowing a hip to be put out in pretense, catching a fish in pretense, in pretense sitting at tables, drinking and eating in pretense. No, one does not have to beget a child or plant a tree to summon the magic. If you’re real, then show us the magic.
Some angels live simple lives. They go to work, take the train home after a long day to feed the cat.
And then there are the dark angels who once in a while, enthuse for evil. Draw all the demons of the earth from passers-by and chase them out into the world. Let them run savage.
Sit alone. Let things happen! We can only be savages in as much as we remain serious. Do no more than look. Assemble, testify, and preserve. Remain the spirit.
Most people keep their distance, keep their eyes wide shut. When the child was a child, there was time for these questions. When did time begin, and where does space end? Isn’t what I see, hear, and smell just the mirage of a world before the world? How can it be that I, who am I, wasn’t before I was, and that sometime I, the one I am, no longer will be the one I am?
Angels walking breathing, whispering and Longing. Longing for a wave of love that would stir them with-in. They see love, but seem loveless. They speak of the Desire for love but only in silence. They have Desire to love, but they are broken. Clumsy, chained to the earth unable to fly, because one wing is broken from their fall to here.
The night light. The Light of angels’ eyes, which are lakes, the color of stones. The pebbles on a river bed. The light.
The night flight. Walking the streets with camera in hand, the beautiful stranger. She is our storyteller. She shows us where the angels hide, what we cannot see, the unknown bruises. The camera, an instrument of detection catching images like butterflies in a net. They are all around us, though we don’t see them. Their hot colors, give off a volcanic heat.
Yet in the shadows, we find the secrets, only take the time and look, the eyes that stare back reveal nothing. In the lens she sees the images unfold in front of her in fiery monochromes, the images emerge from darkness.
But in the images she creates, there are no answers, only more questions. The figures are an untold story, the photographer a storyteller. In our adulthood we forget the beginning of time and the angels disappear from us. What she shows is hidden and secret.
-Stanley Greene, New-York, February 27, 2009.
Biography:
Born : 1982 (lives and works in Paris, France)
Anne-Lise Large has a Doctorate in Philosophy, she studied at The University of Strasbourg and at The University of Paris-Sorbonne where she received her Doctorate. The research work and her thesis “The Burning of Visibility — at the boundary of photographic imagery and writing” which will be published in 2009. She also has a Diploma from The Cinema and Photographic Department of The University of Strasbourg, where she studied photography as her major. Later, she participated in Workshops of Antoine d’Agata and Klavdij Sluban, where she developed her own personal vision, and today continues to explore the boundaries of her photographic work and her images are becoming more personal and introspective, lyrically haunting and visually arresting.
In 2005, her photos were selected for an exhibition at the Montevideo (Marseille, France) curated by the French Philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy. The same year, Anne-Lise Large created and Exhibition of her own pictures which was titled Ph(il/ot)o-graphie – “European Scene” in Strasbourg (France), she created a body of work, which she placed a long side the writings of French Philosophers that created original text for her images that worked as a visual forum between Photography, Writing and Philosophy allowing interpretation from all arenas of thought.
She has been exhibited at the French Institute of Dresden (Germany, 2005) and later, in 2006, at the Gallery of François Miron during the Month of Photography in Paris (France). She was chosen for the Festival of Photojournalism of Angers (France, 2008) for her work on “Women in Jerusalem, Israël” called “On the other side”. These pictures depicts the women against the wailing wall who are fervent in prayer. She draws the viewer to see and understand a hidden World, that is not often shown before in photojournalism.
The Museum Of Photography André Villers (Mougins, France, 2008) proposed her an monographic exhibition and published a catalog which was prefaced by Hélène Cixous.
Anne-Lise Large completed a residence at the French House at Oxford University –CNRS, National Center for Scientific Research (Great Britain, 2007) and at the center of research of Jerusalem (Israel, 2008). She gave also conferences and workshops around the question of the image and writing. Her Photographs have been awarded many diverse distinctions, including acquisitions by private collectors and placed in institutional collections. She was awarded “Paris Jeunes Talents” (2006) and the first Prize of Photography of The University of Strasbourg (France, 2007). Her photos were selected for the International Festival “Les Rencontres d’Arles” in 2008.
She is now engaged in numerous projects and exhibitions in France and abroad. Presently, she is residing in New-York and is working on a new personal project.