Mathieu Chaze French, b. 1982

Mathieu Chaze started his serious practice of photography in his mid thirties. A young father, he often said to his two sons that they should pursue their interests with passion and believe in their dreams. The irony of him working in a bank in a job which was not fulfilling him will not escape him for much longer. One day, questioned by his then 6 year old son Hugo about whether he would remember all this time spent together when he is an adult, Mathieu realised a change was needed and decided to dedicate himself fully to caring for his boys by homeschooling them during the pandemic and to dive deeper into photography. 

 

What followed was “Rock, Paper, Scissors”, a body of work about childhood, siblings’ rivalry as well as interdependence, our place in the landscape, the exploration of universal bonds and questions of transmission between parents and children. 

 

The boys growing up and back at school, Mathieu was left with the landscape to interrogate. As most landscape photographers, Mathieu is concerned with the environment and as he wrote to his boys, “we are part of the landscape and not the other way around”. The work is poetic but not romantic. It shows beauty but there is also a sense of foreboding which reminds us of the fragility of the natural world and the dangers which might loom ahead. This is particularly true of his latest body of work where water elements in the landscape are used as a common thread and where despite its beauty, water is used to convey different feelings and emotions and in turn make us feel cold, soothed or slightly uncomfortable.

 

Mathieu is currently working on a photobook which will feature his exploration of water in the landscape.