Laurent Lafolie (b. Sens, France, 1963; lives and works in Salies-de-Béarn)

.BLANK (2024)

.BLANK is a collection of photographs of burnt forests, bearing witness to the implacable process of destruction, and nature’s cyclical process of degeneration and renewal. Taken in black and white with a view camera, the images show the remains of the Sicilian forest after the major fires of summer 2023. The prints were made using a chemical-free laser engraving technique on recycled cardboard. The slow progression of the laser burn on the support over 24 hours mirrors the process of the wildfires depicted, creating a three-dimensional, almost bas-relief-like surface.

Laurent Lafolie’s practice explores how images appear and are perceived. Also a respected printmaker, he experiments with chemistry, materials such as washi, tracing paper, silk, glass, and ceramics, and processes including contact, platinum, UV printing, etching, enameling, and laser engraving. His works take the form of photographic objects whose legibility shifts with the viewer’s movement around them.

His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions, including in Bologna (2025) and a first retrospective at the Château d’Eau, Toulouse (2022). He also participated in several group exhibitions, including the Musée des Abattoirs, Toulouse (2024–2025), the Réattu Museum, Arles (2023), and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (2022–2023). His works are in numerous private and public collections, including the Florence & Damien Bachelot collections, Isabelle Darrigrand, Neuflize OBC, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Château d’Eau, Toulouse. Winner of the Prize of the Collection Florence & Damien Bachelot in 2022, he was appointed laureate of the national commission Réinventer la photographie in 2025, on the occasion of the bicentenary of photography.

Founded in 2010, Galerie Binome (Le Marais, Paris) is dedicated to contemporary photography. Its program of exhibitions and international fairs features established and emerging contemporary artists exploring the conceptual and formal boundaries of the medium. In search of new forms in photography, and interested in experimentation with the materiality and media of the image, the selection of works establishes dialogues with sculpture and drawing, or with traditional materials such as ceramics and textiles. The definition and expansion of the photographic field are at the heart of the gallery’s reflections. Member of the Comité professionnel des galeries d’art, Galerie Binome develops numerous collaborations with personalities from the world of art and photography, curators, private and public institutions. In 2023, its director Valérie Cazin was appointed to the Paris Photo selection committee.