With the Et omnia series, Claire Artemyz continues to explore the intimate side of humanity. The skull—the vessel of thought—appears as a paradoxical anatomical object: both a marker of individual identity and a sign of our belonging to the human race. By photographing the skulls of Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and anatomically modern humans (Cro-Magnons), the artist engages in a face-to-face encounter with our ancestors and confronts a distant past. Here, the photographer considers the skull as the trace of a presence inhabited by emotions.
Continuing the series Affleure de peau, she seeks out the landscape contained within what she sees. Thus, cranial sutures become dry riverbeds. The photographic medium is used here not to show reality, but to construct a visual language. By eschewing figuration, Claire Artemyz moves away from the anecdotal, leaving the viewer with a broader space for projection, open to the imagination and thought. Through her subtle use of light, she reveals the lithophany of the skull bone. The result is images with flamboyant colors, which sometimes seem to burst into flames like a fleeting thought. The skull then becomes a vibrant vestige of life, consciousness, and the mystery of otherness.
