" The very essence of the book PAN is to create a harmonious beauty by revealing the relationship between the thin tree leaf as the support for photographs, and the sheet of paper chosen for the image reproduction."
Artist: Patrice Dion
Project: Pan
Book published by Editions Light Motiv
Text by Fabrice Ribery
"The book PAN was born in a garden during a summer, year 2020. Using tree leaves such as catalpa, amaranth, japanese mulberry, vine… the photographer and gardener Patrice Dion reveals his images thanks to the action of the sun on the clorophyll of tree leaves: he calls that the helio-chlorophyll-type.
Using nor chemicals neither electricity, he gradually improves his process and ends up obtaining a precise image on each tree leaf used instead of a photosensitive paper. That approach echoes the photographic experimentations of anthotype. Other contemporary photographers use the same technique, such as Japanese artist Hiro Chiba and American-Vietnamese photographer Binh Danh."
"The very essence of the book PAN is to create a harmonious beauty by revealing the relationship between the thin tree leaf as the support for photographs, and the sheet of paper chosen for the image reproduction. It is all about feeling the same sensation that our fingers can feel when touching a natural leaf.
Printed on a very delicate paper (Pergamenata) or on a textured paper (Arena Natural), each photograph follows curves and veins, catching here and there a memory, a sensation, an encounter that each leaf seems to preserve tenderly in the hollow of its veins.
Throughout the pages, a visual storytelling is discovered: certain details of characters, animals and abstract figures in the photographs, are isolated and put in relation with each other. Readers are then immersed in a dreamlike and sensual atmosphere which echoes the inherent fragility of nature, its ephemeral essence."
© Patrice Dion published by Editions Light Motiv