‘For me, it all began with his animal skulls juxtaposed with the ruins of Beirut. He is one of the few who is able / knows how to photograph a drop of perfume, a puff of powder. In Arles, he preferred to show his trompe-l’oeil ‘vanities’ (which would certainly have been this festival’s title, had it had one) of great 17th-century paintings, which are great contemporary photos.‘

Christian Lacroix

STILL LIFE / NATURE MORTE

‘The day someone looking at my pictures asked me why I had photographed paintings, I knew that my goal – illusion – had been achieved’. Guido Mocafico takes a personal look at the great still-life painters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Via the table still life, the bouquet and the vanitas he undertakes an obsessive examination of light, colour, texture and compositional codes in the work of artists including Willem Claesz Heda, Jan Bruegel, Jan Davidsz de Heem, Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin or Abraham van der Schorr. These painters imitated life, and Guido Mocafico imitates painting, working from life in a dual mise en abyme that leads the viewer into error.

www.guidomocafico.com

These images were made with the collaboration of food designer Emmanuel Turiot, set designer Hervé Sauvage and flower designers Marie-Christine Loo and and Fabien Rochoux.

Postproduction by Marie Zacchi.

Guido Mocafico is represented by the Kamel Mennour gallery, Paris and the Hamiltons Gallery, London.