UNTITLED | VASANTHA YOGANANTHAN
Self-taught photographer Vasantha Yogananthan, born to a French mother and a father originally from Sri Lanka, explores the narrative dimension of images in his work. In a cultural encounter between East and West, the passage of time, its perception, and its recording give rise to stories that find their natural expression in seriality.
Since 2020, Yogananthan has been dedicated to the project Images Imaginaires, a documentation of the places in Provence, which he has visited repeatedly.
This project captures a domestic, private dimension, an inner time that can only be imagined through the words of a book, the design of a print, or the light from a window. Every detail is merely hinted at, almost whispered, left and offered as a mosaic to be pieced together. The faces are hidden, and female figures are suggested in a suspended dimension where light, in a classical sense, guides the gaze and composition.
The only protagonist that appears, and indeed offers itself to the camera, naturally performing, is a cat, in the classic and elegant seated pose, somewhere between a set piece and a stereotype.
The cat appears on stone walls, among narrow, cobbled alleys, on window sills; part resident and part tourist, a frequenter of days and nights, a silent yet constant presence.
A yawn or perhaps a call, the main actor of Time Frames—the first chapter of Images Imaginaires—reveals itself, showing its teeth. The viewer is caught between a desire to approach and a fear of the wild nature that the feline instinctively retains. It is perhaps this ambivalent feeling, between the reassurance of the familiar and curiosity about the unknown, that unlocks this riddle of images that Yogananthan constructs, not to provide a solution, but to open the door to the next chapter.
The artwork is part of the exhibition “Vasantha Yogananthan – Time Frames,” hosted at Cloître Saint-Trophime for the 2024 edition of the Rencontres d’Arles festival, July 1–September 29, 2024.
Vasantha Yogananthan
Untitled, Time Frames series, 2020-2022
Courtesy of the artist
07/08/24