Philippe Fragnière (1987) is a Swiss photographer who lives and works in London and Switzerland. Originally from Valais in the Swiss Alps, he studied photography at the Ecole Cantonale d’ Art de Lausanne (ECAL), graduating with honors. Philippe has previously exhibited his work at IMA gallery and POST in Ebisu, 2014. His first monograph, Snowpark, was published in 2014 by Kodoji Press, and was featured in the selection for the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation First Photobook award. The Photobook was widely exhibited and led to an artist residency in Tokyo the following year. The project was also exhibited at the Festival Images in Vevey (CH). A monograph of the Greppon series, including the images featured in the exhibition, will be published by Kodoji Press in Fall 2021. Besides his own artistic practice, Philippe also works as a still life photographer for a variety of editorial and commercial clients in London and Paris. He regularly collaborates with publications including Wallpaper*, Numéro, ICON, and luxury brands such as Decencia, Hermès, Dior, Cartier, and Patek Philippe amongst others. Since 2016, Philippe has also taught photography at ECAL as an invited lecturer.
About Greppon – words by Philippe Fragnière:
Greppon, presents a selection of 30 images from his project of the same name. The photographs were taken in Wallis, near the Veysonnaz region of Switzerland over the past five years. The series stems from the desire to explore the mythology tied to the natural and alpine environments, kept alive in the mountain villages by the older generation, whilst also capturing the desire to escape the oppressive sense of stagnation that forms in these remote areas. The series oscillates between fiction and documentary; echoing the way in which myths are formed through the distortion of reality that transforms objects into symbols. Though these images capture the beauty of the natural environment, they are also tinged with Existential fear, the weight of time, and the anxiety of death that accompanies personal and sometimes fraught relationships with an environment or place full of personal experiences.
‘Greppon plays on the idea of vision – a vision that is in turn blurry, crystal clear or even surreal. There is a desire for an immersive creation which is derived from the more intuitive approach that has guided this project. The entire process was approached in a phenomenological way, exploring the differentiation between reality and perception. An exploration of the idea: «If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?»’
