REDSEA Gallery is proud to present “Aluminations”: a showcase of works by French photographic
artist, Manolo Chrétien, including the world’s first, and only, works of art on original Concorde and other
vintage airplane parts.
Vintage Concorde by Manolo Chrétien (100cm x 200cm, photograph on aluminum aerospatial template)
Manolo is highly celebrated world-wide for bringing a new and original dimension to photography. It is through
his unparalled technique of printing fine art images onto brushed, recycled aluminum that he turns his original,
stunning images into large, sensual, metallic works of art.
This new collection of over 25 individual pieces draws on his critically-acclaimed series: Citilusions (New York
architecture); Flux (water and fluidity); Juste-Ciel (vintage aircrafts) and Nouveaux-Nez (face-to-face interaction
with aircrafts). The recurring theme being that of ‘skins’ (surfaces), rivets, undulations, curves, reflections and
an ultimate appreciation of the purity and beauty of form and fluidity.
Bringing this new collection further wide-spread international attention, is the inclusion of images of aviation’s
most legendary aircraft of all, Concorde, printed on the original aluminum sheets that formed the design
templates for the manufacturing of Concorde back in the 1950s and 1960s. Granted legal and solo access to
these, Manolo has worked the sheets in such a way that the original design drawings can still be seen through
his own images, making each and every one of these pieces a truly unique and historical work of art.
Born in 1966 on a French Air Force base, Manolo’s work is the inevitable result of a childhood surrounded by
bright aluminum, hot tarmac and kerosene smells. But it is his never-ending quest for tracking the fluidity of
movement, the ‘anemorphose’ (the wind that sculpts the elements) and his exacting eye and unique printing and
production technique on aluminum that enables him to replicate this fluidity in such a tactile, sensual way.
“All my art is about dynamics. I love fluidity. I love undulations. I love reflections. And so I am always trying to
capture that instant when an object is momentarily, or directly, transformed or distorted in your eyes; like a wave
at the point of breaking; that moment when the light illumates the sea; or when a plane is moving and the wind
makes undulations on its structure.” Says Manolo Chrétien.
