Lightness Of Being

French photographer Cerise Doucede (above) suspends objects in midair, creating one-of-a-kind tableaux that appear to be frozen in time, and reinventing the art of portraiture by conceiving environments that teem with inanimate objects suspended in space, like swirling thoughts giving expression to the personalities of each of her subjects.

Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, Cerise draws us into their imaginations by carefully composing magical scenes where teapots, shoes, butterflies or even matadors appear to levitate as if asking viewers to suspend belief for just a moment.

Lost in thought, the characters project their fears, obsessions, and fantasies onto chaotic settings in intimate locations at banal moments – like during meals – where surrounding objects, taking on a life of their own, fly, collide and unite. Scenes of daily life being an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Cerise, she takes a step back to create her own hallucinogenic version of reality, which sublimates the most ordinary instances.

Reinterpreting The World

Her Egarements (Distractions) and Quotidien (Everyday Life) series present improbable scenes where contemplative subjects appear happily lost in daydreams that provide a momentary escape from their otherwise mediocre lives. But it was with Genese (Genesis), realized in 2009, that she decided to stop all other activities to concentrate solely on photography.

Her version of the story of the creation of the universe – where God is a woman who creates the sky, sun, moon, animals, and fish in her garage – reveals her slightly off-beat vision of religion.

“A very important factor, when I start a new work, is to follow the idea I’ve chosen and to create a series that evokes the same story at different angles. I don’t make images to make an image – I’m continuing a story,” she says, “The notion of a series is primordial. I’m a sort of collector of photos; I find it hard to know when a series is finished.”