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French photographic artist, Jean Philippe Kadzinski currently resides in New York, where he produces rhythmic depictions of the opportune city. Born in a small village in Lorraine, the artist spent his youth in a dissimilar landscape. Categorized by verdant farmland and industrial manufacturing, the nature-rich town nurtured an exploratory boyhood spent roaming forests and hills. At fourteen, shortly before receiving his mechanical diploma, he began an apprenticeship at a pipe factory. However, for Kadzinski, industrious labors lacked the creative, self-actualizing stimulation he necessitated. By the age of 29, this passionate sentiment drove a fulfilment-seeking venture to Paris, where he found himself in pursuit of modeling and advertisement.
Prior to the commencement of his personal photographic endeavors, Kadzinksi meticulously compounded traits of his pending artistry. While in front of camera, he gained insights into composing images through his own intuitive movements and lighting direction. From this proficiency bloomed an immersed familiarity with subject matter and its role. As he now sculpts visuals from an external standpoint, the experience has gifted a perceptively dualistic quality in his relationship to the camera. Such union of skills and understandings heavily influence Jean Philippe Kadzinski’s aesthetic, which delivers vibrantly active representations of his explored realities. Conceptually, this is evident when a childhood Introspective appreciation of nature intersects with the interactions in a newfound bustling world outside of himself. The metropolitan environment encourages reflection also on our relatively minuscule, yet substantial place in society, a viewpoint magnified when he granted his own childhood dream of moving to New York City.
Here, his ability to infuse life into the otherwise predictable through diligence and intuitive navigation is paralleled in his creative process. On the subject of this artistic conversion, Kadzinski states “The camera is both sensitive and adaptable. With this tool, I could transform banality into beauty and excitement- something I always found myself desiring from a young age”
To do so in the framework of the urban metropolis, he observantly paces vast distances through the boroughs, rendering seemingly mundane aspects of city life into optically tantalizing collages. In the instance of his recent work, visual profundity takes the camouflaged form of fire escapes. In a singular context, each is an emblem of everyday life, as well as the ever growing multitude of properties in the area’s composition. The works urge us to look at a more comprehensive image, while ceasing to omit subtler aspects from our attention span. The final product embodies a universal notion that the unity and inclusion of these details are crucial in formulating the cityscape’s energy. Moreover, its further implications are open to interpretation, as the imagery provides a thriving space for varied experiential insight, much like the depicted city itself.
Organic and untouched, his photographs are illuminated by seasonal shifts in natural lighting, which he then methodically harnesses to generate specified color schemes and values. Compressed within each focal configuration, sharp structured lines weave in and out of organized formation and energetic spontaneity. The final product can be categorized by inventively striking, oftentimes whimsical compositional makeups, extending from kaleidoscopic visuals to large scale formulations of the American flag. As a process artist, his involved strategy is indicative of distinct visual understanding and innovative photographic technique, while the stylistic touches are humble assertions of a thriving imagination. His passionate, inquisitive diligence paints art as a rewarding opportunity to unearth personal insights in the parallels of honing his craft.
Jean Philippe Kadzinski’s oeuvre continues to challenge traditional perspectives shaped by the everyday urban landscape. As artwork generated by a yearning for, and eventual attainment of a creatively abundant lifestyle, it is saturated with palpably optimistic longing that invites even the most jaded viewer to peer through the liberating lens of hopeful possibility.
