Portraits

Etienne Renzo's qualities as a portraitist are undeniable. First of all, he likes people, he says. Some people give him a good account of themselves. What he looks for in a portrait is the aura. This is something he can easily recreate for certain subjects. For others, it's impossible to convey. You can see and feel it.

Taken for themselves or set in context, there's something magnetic about Etienne Renzo's particularly successful portraits. They touch on a dimension that goes beyond the image and the photograph. It's as if, through photography, he is sending us back to the generic pictorial dimension of art. To the point of revealing the ineffable of being and living through the image. Etienne Renzo's portraits are invaluable because they reveal a dimension of photography that has been little explored, namely its energetic and invisible dimension, which can also be found in certain paintings. This is particularly true of the astonishing series of ordinary angels, some of whom took to the skies on his aerodrome.

Etienne Renzo says of them: "Photographing angels means rediscovering as much as possible of the magic of everyday life, the marvel of life in peace, so that it doesn't fall into oblivion. In this way, my photographs fulfil the task of the angels. Unveiling these images is my profane and imperfect solution to a traditionally divine task"