Mathieu Chaze’s artistic journey began one crisp autumn morning about six years ago. Aged 37 and walking through his local woods, his then-six-year-old son asked him a question that stopped him in his tracks: “When I’m an adult,” Hugo asked, “will I remember all of this?”. Listening to this simple yet profound question, Mathieu suddenly remembered being his son’s age and his father his. “You think you have all the time in the world, and suddenly you realise it is an illusion,” he reflects. A sliding door moment. Shortly after, he hung up his suit and his banking job of 15 years to dedicate himself to being a full-time dad and pursuing his long-standing passion for photography.
His debut photobook, Rock, Paper, Scissors, reflects this transformative period during which he homeschooled his boys. Set in the English countryside, this elegiac body of work is a tender exploration of sibling relationships, memory, the universal bonds between parents and children, and our place in the landscape. Intimate portraits of his sons are interwoven with evocative landscapes, creating a poetic narrative that is at once personal and universal. Critics have praised Chaze’s ability to balance technical mastery with emotional depth.
For Mathieu, fatherhood and artistry feed into each other. “I am convinced that I am a better dad for it, and without the pain that comes from parenthood, my work wouldn’t have the same depth.” Asked about what this pain is, he said: “Being a parent is an incredible source of joy and fulfilment, but it is also a heartbreak. They are only at home for a short period of time, and then they are out on their own. You wish you could protect them forever, but you can’t. And one day, we won’t be here altogether for them, and to think about that just hurts—but it also pushes me to create and leave something behind.”
As his boys have returned to school, Mathieu has continued to photograph and interrogate the landscape. He says the work is still somehow about his boys, even if the portraits are fewer and farther between. His latest body of work has the theme of water running through it. “Water is mysterious and dark, but it transforms all the time and is engaged in this infinite cycle which is essential to life. I find this idea both scary and comforting. Like parenting.”