Artist Spotlight: Marwane Pallas

Marwane Pallas had a few years of a banking career and quickly realized he was being called to another direction. Here is his story in his own words:

"I bought my camera about five years ago. I used to draw a lot but I rarely had the patience required to finish my drawings. I thought photography was much more affecting. You can’t help it. But as I switched artistic medium, i kept the same inspirations. You see I learned drawing by copying renaissance paintings and pictures of ancient statues. Even though I now have other influences as well, my work is still very marked by classic aesthetics."

At left, from the series: "This Is My Body"
Eve In The Making
2013, edition of 7 Diasecs
100 x 75 cm

For more information:
Life Gallery
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"When I was kid, my parents could take me anywhere as long as I had a pen and paper to draw. I was self-sufficient. I need to be self-sufficient with photography as well. I’m very solitary and not the most social type. It's something I both love and hate. However I'm sure I'd hate to always have to rely on others to shoot and then having the pressure of results. I don’t plan my shootings, I don’t plan my free time or whenever inspiration hits. I just go outside or set up a white sheet in my one bedroom flat when I feel like it. People think it’s very egocentric of me to do self-portraits but from my experience, it’s much more egocentric to be giving orders to models, to be begged to shoot them. When you’re alone, you can’t be egocentric. For example, I might be a self-portrait artist, yet I don't have the habit of posting phone selfies on social media, or use Snapchat — all the tools of the selfie generation. I actually have problems with being photographed for other reasons than art."

From the series: "This Is My Body"
This Is My Blood
2013, edition of 7 Diasecs
100 x 80 cm

When I was kid, my parents could take me anywhere as long as I had a pen and paper to draw. I was self-sufficient. I need to be self-sufficient with photography as well. I’m very solitary and not the most social type. It's something I both love and hate. However I'm sure I'd hate to always have to rely on others to shoot and then having the pressure of results. I don’t plan my shootings, I don’t plan my free time or whenever inspiration hits. I just go outside or set up a white sheet in my one bedroom flat when I feel like it. People think it’s very egocentric of me to do self-portraits but from my experience, it’s much more egocentric to be giving orders to models, to be begged to shoot them. When you’re alone, you can’t be egocentric. For example, I might be a self-portrait artist, yet I don't have the habit of posting phone selfies on social media, or use Snapchat — all the tools of the selfie generation. I actually have problems with being photographed for other reasons than art.

"I’m sort of a performance artists who is afraid of crowds."

From the series: "This Is My Body"
Let Him Hear
2013, edition of 7 Diasecs
100 x 70 cm

"As for the process itself, it’s really just improvisation every time. I go out and I see. I notice a form, a pattern in the landscape or in an object, or I notice an association of ideas that looks interesting visually. Sometimes I have nothing and it’s just my body alone. I fool around until I find the right composition. I have a very low success rate. Even my coherent series are mostly improvised. They’re not well thought out in advance. For instance The series 'Doctrine of Signature': I accidentally did two pictures with fruits because I think they have a very erotic charge and reminded me of human shapes. I thought, well I must try to do more to have a complete series. That’s the only time I actually plan images, when I want to finish a series. But the rest of the time, I never know what I am doing."

For more of Pallas's work (some we can't show here), or for commission and print enquiries please contact the artist at marwanepallas.com.

From the series: "This Is My Body"
My Body Is A Temple
2013, edition of 7 Diasecs
120 x 120cm