Pascal Amoyel holds an MFA from the ENSP-Arles (France) and a MA degree in Contemporary History, Université Paris 1 Sorbonne. His projects focus on specific facets of cities, regions or countries such as history, geography, or culture. Pascal broadens his relationship to photography with teaching, curating and book design assignments. His work is held by the Print and Photography Department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, as well as by private collectors. Pascal’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally
Prints from his series “Levés d’Ouest (Western Surveys)” have been exhibited in 2018 at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, in the major exhibition “French landscapes, A photographic experience, 1984-2017”. In 2016, he published his book “NOT ALL” with Poursuite Editions. This series received the Juror Award from Romke Hoogwaerts (Mossless) in Slideluck Mad River Valley and was selected among the finalists of the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center Annual Competition. This body of work was also exhibited in a solo show at the Fine Art Museum of Mulhouse, during the Biennial of Photography (BPM, France). Called “Not All Rebberg” the exhibition presented photographs taken while he was Artist-In-Residence (invited by the BPM) in a Mulhouse neighborhood named Rebberg, along with pictures from the book.
Saint-Gaudens
“The Spanish Gipsy has a skin tag on the left side of his forehead and dark pomade-flattened hair. The same baldness with my father’s green eyes. When the engine of the Iveco truck broke down in front of his house he replaced it with the help of his own father, five hundred pounds of metal and a few more kilos of grease. As the manual chain hoist gave way they lifted the engine with two iron bars in hands and put it and bolted it. During this time, a police car kept driving by their house again and again – looking at the broken motor and the tools on the sidewalk and the oil that had spread on the asphalt that they will have to clean for good eventually. The officers gazed at them with a disdainful look you know. When he finished to tell his story he looked up towards the mountains in front of us that started over there beyond the river where they used to sometimes release water. You’d better beware of the Garonne River that remained hidden from our view by the poplar trees. The Pyrénées and the old pulp and paper factory spitting crystalline vapour in the cold morning air – on the tracks a train whistled – he took a drag of his smoke, shook my hand and went back inside.”
These photographs were taken between 2016 & 2018 in Saint-Gaudens (Haute-Garonne, France), with a 4×5 field camera, during several artist-in-residence stays in this town. This work comprises forty-five pictures and will be published in spring 2019 by Poursuite Editions.
To view more of Pascal Amoyel’s work please visit his website.