Absynthe Takis

Woman,mother, artist and, above all, citizen of the world, I welcome you on

this site and I hope my photographic creations will “speak” to you. It is

indeed about communication, and Art itself, whatever its means, is but the

expression of a soul meeting other souls.

My career path is not unusual as I first attended general artistic studies

( Classe Préparatoire Beaux Arts, D.E.U.G. in Arts plastiques at

university) then I specialized in audiovisual studies ( Maîtrise = Master’s

degree with the option Direction in the E.S.A.V. school) before naturally

going back to my first love : photography.

We first met during the year 1985, when, not yet in my teens, I was lucky

enough to enter the secret den of a lab : radical smells, submarine-like

lights, the image revealing itself in the fixing bath – a witch’s caldron

? – a parallel universe in which I instinctively felt right. On the

following Christmas, from the frantically ripped off wrapping paper, emerged

a camera !

It was a minimalist red box with a small yellow bird to press on, and the

beginning of a beautiful adventure made of experiments and attempts.

At the same time, I very early felt the desire to be a seagoing captain

rather than a competition going swot. “ To leave one’s bearings ...One’s

feet firmly on the ground, one’s heart with men, one’s head in the stars !”.

I could hear the call for other places, other beings ... There I was, a

convert to travels : they are a way to reveal oneself, to avoid stagnation,

to settle one’s ideas, one’s ideals and one’s humanism.

As a gift ... one receives the Essential ! Love for the Earth, for Mankind

and a deep rooted conviction : to see difference as a force, not as a fear.

Such a diversity I practice.

I am opposed to labels, to obvious compartments in which one is too easily

put away, I am multiple, mixed and unique at the same time.

Black & white, colours, editing in shots, at the lab or on the computer...

“Pure” images... Baroque accumulation or bare minimalism ...

A true freedom of expression in subject and form !

To the given proposition of “being / becoming” I answer : Man grows with

roots but without any predestined garden.

I am convinced of the intense importance of education, of childhood, of

setbacks and of society in the developping of the seed in constant evolution

that we have been, that we are forever.

Are sensitive dispositions the same for every individual from the start ?

In any case, choice is there, though it is not in what is suffered, stolen

or offered, it lies in our freedom to react to such data .

It also lies, in spite of everything, in our interest and love or

disenchantment for the Other.

We are all alchemists able to transform lead into gold...

Absynthe (thank you KATS!)