The ardent burst projects without limits.

The title Benoit Platéus gives to his series is particularly well chosen, in the mystery it raises and in the material reality it reveals: Ghostburn. A ghost's burn. The technique of extreme sun exposure that the artist uses on his prints, and therefore on the subjects of his prints, seems to petrify them. The density of light splashes over them and, by burning the paper's surface, creates a golden and enigmatic fixation . The photograph is no longer unified, it vibrates in its matter and transforms the figure into a statue. Kate Winslet's face in the portrait the artist created (K.W. 2014) is in that sense clearly a Greek effigy, a majestic huntress Diana. The haunting question Benoit Platéus raises, if it applies to the result of the images he created by a technique that irradiates them, also conjures the entire imaginary of spaces that become ghostly because we cannot touch them. In many cultures where spirits are part of daily life, there is no difference between spiritual and tangible matter. Light is often the vector of this in-between state that goes from the visible to the invisible and that adjoins dematerialization at every instant. This might be what is at work in Ghostburn, where the undead go up in flames.

Text: Elvan Zabunyan