Patrick Messina uses a view-camera to photograph a universe of almost cinematographic solitude where he bears witness to beings' intimate experience of space. As he updates the underside of the world, he positions lone silhouettes against the sea or softens the contours of deserted parking lots. In order to reveal the fragility of things, he sometimes softens focus into haloes, muddles the perspective and scale, as if an occult hand was manipulating the figurines and the cities behind a set. His portraits detach themselves, raw and without concession to appearances, between mirror and window, flight and nakedness. From photo-journalism to advertising campaigns and fashion shoots, Patrick Messina has imposed his own semantics on every aspect of the image. His recent works, urban landscapes in New-York, Hong-Kong and Paris, or his series of rural images such as Iceland or the Languedoc region in southern France, make him an artist who offers unexplored dimensions of the known, between documentary and breathtaking interpretation. Through his extraordinary eye, reality becomes metaphysical.
2004 : My little America, La Filature, Mulhouse 2003 : My Small America, gallery Colette, Paris 2002 : Battle, Sollers, Artaud, a trilogy of Andre S.Labarthe, Le Bon Marché, Paris 2000 : New York, Festival "Terre d'Images" in Biarritz. 2000 : To be 20 years old, Centers Photographic in Lectourne
