Jefferson HAYMAN

Now my heart is full

David Guiraud is pleased to announce the return of American photographer Jefferson Hayman to Paris for his 4th solo exhibition at the gallery, from February 9 to April 6, 2024, with an opening reception on Thursday, February 8, at 6 pm.

David Guiraud Gallery first showcased Jefferson Hayman in France in 2016 and has since organized three solo shows in the Marais district, while regularly featuring his work at the Art Elysées fair in Paris. The connection between the gallery and the contemporary artist is longstanding and reflects a commitment for the long term.

Jefferson Hayman stands out as an original artist in the landscape of contemporary photography. His work is characterized by simple and delicate images of characters, objects, or landscapes, printed using a variety of both modern and ancient techniques (silver gelatin, platinum, cyanotype, pigment), revealing his admiration and knowledge of the Pictorialist movement of the early 20th century.

Hayman pays homage to the entire early 20th-century American photography movement, drawing inspiration from it in the treatment of light and the composition of his images. His views of New York are captivating, transporting us to 1920 in Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen's Gallery 291, surrounded by masterpieces of modern photography. Jefferson Hayman's gaze upon the clouds is another connection to A. Stieglitz and his series "Equivalents."

Despite this, Jefferson Hayman is indeed a contemporary artist, born in 1969 in the United States. While his contemporaneity may not be evident in the approach to his shooting or darkroom printing, it resides in the subjects and themes he addresses. Presenting the mask of Darth Vador or a skateboard in a classic treatment creates a sense of anachronism. This likely contributes to the notion of nostalgia and a chosen suspended time in Hayman's work. The sensitivity of an era, his era, is composed within the prints of this artist.

Yet, Hayman's artistic proposition goes beyond. Thanks to his training as a framer and his passion for collecting antique frames, all his photographs are custom-framed, giving them an original and unique personality. Through Jefferson Hayman's work, one realizes the evocative power of an image based on its size and framing. Few photographers make this proposition, one that shouldn't be regarded as decorative but rather as a formal and graphic statement in line with the logic of a visual artist. The artwork engages with the personality and sensibility of the viewer and collector.

The formal possibilities of Jefferson Hayman's works have an additional dimension. Observing the artist's work reveals the precious and greedy aspect of the pieces, and more importantly, that each artwork is a word, from which it is possible to compose one's own sentence. The size of the framed photographs, often close to miniature, encourages accumulation and juxtaposition. The works brought together on a wall then create a new graphic work in line with the installation.

Jefferson Hayman's plastic dimensions are manifold, and the story he tells is one we want to write. It's time to discover this rare and delicate artist, once again exhibited in Paris and collected for many years on the other side of the Atlantic.

D.G.