Pierre Gonnord

PIERRE GONNORD (France, 1963).
"Stephan", 2001.
Color photography. Copy 2/3.
With Juana de Aizpuru Gallery label on the back.
Signed, dated, titled and justified on the back.
Measurements: 100 x 100 cm; 114 x 114 cm (frame).
Known for his portraits of great piscological depth this artist declared. "I choose my contemporaries in the anonymity of big cities because their faces, under the skin, tell unique and remarkable stories about our time. Sometimes hostile, almost always fragile and very often wounded behind the opacity of their masks, they represent concrete social realities and sometimes another concept of beauty. I also try to approach the unclassifiable, timeless individual, to suggest things that have been repeated over and over again since time began. I would like to encourage to cross a border".

A prominent French photographer born in Cholet, Pierre Gonnord has lived in Madrid since 1988, and currently works in collaboration with the prestigious Juana de Aizpuru gallery in that city. A self-taught artist and winner of the 2007 Community of Madrid Culture Award, in 1998 Gonnord began a personal project, which defines his mature language, centered on the human face. The first series within this new style will be "Interiors" (Madrid, 1999) and "City" (New York, 2001), derived from his own urban experience. Later he will make new series, already with characters of different races: "Regards" (2002-2003), "Far East" (Japan, 2003) and "Utopians" (2004-2005). In these last series Gonnord approaches characters marginalized by society, portraying them in close-ups. We find vagrants, madmen, prisoners or blind people, but also monks, geishas and members of urban gangs, characters who remain on the fringes of their society in a different way. In his latest series, "Witnesses", he has approached the world of the gypsies and the people who have lived through the tragedies of the Balkans and North Africa. Throughout his career, Gonnord has held exhibitions of his work in Spain, France and the United States, among other countries, both in galleries and in museums and art centers, including the Centro Cultural Conde Duque in Madrid, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville, the University of Salamanca, the Atelier des Forges in Arles, the FRAC of Auvergne-Ecuries in Chazerat or the photographic festivals of Helsinki and Oslo. Today he is mainly represented in the Juana de Aizpuru gallery, but his work can also be found in other outstanding collections, such as that of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.