Navy, Portrait of a Sailor, silver colour print on Dibond, 2007   



Marine.
Portrait d’un marin, 2007





Navy is quite simply the portrait of a sailor.

He is in full winter clothes.
He has spent his entire career below sea level.
Of course, we immediately think of Captain Nemo.
When you look at him, everything is beautiful: his look, the determination written on his face but also the serenity, the mastery.
The gaze of someone who, for his entire life, expects he will be ordered to press the fatal red button.
In this portrait we can clearly see that he is paying attention to the world, especially the world under water.
More than a sailor who crosses atop the waves, he is in perfect harmony with the depths of the seas and oceans.
That is why, in order to create this portrait, the sounds of that world come out of the image : whales, dolphins, engines of huge ships, fast boats, torpedoes and even shrimp. The detailed sounds produced by mammals, as well as detailed sounds of gears.
Now the Commander has become a 5-star Admiral, he slowly retreats on the sand of the beach, but miraculously his steps do not disappear.



Jean Larivière during the helicopter winching from the submarine Le Triomphant in the Atlantic Ocean, 1995            
Navy, Portrait of a Sailor, sound teaser of the installation, 2007





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