This is part of our special feature on Rurality in Europe.
Magali Chesnel is fascinated by salt marshes. By observing them from above, you can behold the spectacular designs of Mother Nature—the intricate patterns, the actions and reactions of the elements all blending together to form a canvas that never fails to impress. The aim of this series is to display nature’s canvas in all it’s glory, creating a confusion in the eye of the beholder, marveling in the marshes’ “painting-like” forms. The photos create a confusion between reality and illusion, photography and painting.
Discover Chesnel’s series of photographs taken in the Camargue, most particularly above the salt marshes of Giraud and Aigues-Mortes. Being influenced and inspired by Rothko’s principles: relying on the primacy of raw emotion, to push the boundaries of form and color, her photos could be closed to an abstract configuration of bands of colors, of unequal widths, seen from the air. The bright pinks and oranges are obtained thanks to the proliferation of a red seaweed: the Dunaliella salina. The magic of biology, time, and the nature.
Magali Chesnel is a French artist, painter, and self-taught photographer. Born in Versailles and a native of Brittany, France, she now works in Geneva, Switzerland.
Published on November 10, 2020.
