Sébastien Forthomme (1976, Belgium) studied at the Agnès Varda School of Photography in Brussels. He was a photographer for the Opéra Royal de la Monnaie between 2008 and 2015. He then embarked on an artistic research and exhibited in Brussels and Amsterdam, among other places. His work expresses his research into doubt, the limits of perception and knowledge, and the human-nature 'continuum'.
In the photographic works of Sébastien Forthomme exists a comparable sensibility towards the negation of the visible in the form of abstract compositions and blurred images. His photographs suggest mystical dimensions through an aesthetic quest that start from the visible only to ascend towards a mesmerising inner voyage made of sinuous shapes and sensuous colours. Sébastien Forthomme’s photographic practice can be identified with a journey towards the absolute that could indeed have affinities to that material separation made of icons that prevents optical vision in favour of another, more transcendent one. ‘It is not doubt but certainty that drives us mad', said Nietzsche. Our society is a knowledge society based on scientific laws dating back to Galileo. Anything that escapes these formalised laws is beyond our horizon. The artist attempts to set this knowledge aside and invoke a more fundamental and innate perception.
Sébastien Forthomme: "Our perception is very valuable without social conventions. Allow yourself to feel on a subconscious level."
