HELIOPOLIS
Heliopolis, refers to the solar city where deities related to the sun were worshipped in Lower Egypt 2600 years before our era.
The sun, source of light, is the genesis of all photography. Without it, everything would be dark. For his Heliopolis series, Mathis photographed architectural elements at the moment when the sun is at its zenith and the light is so intense that it plunges the spaces that are inaccessible to it into darkness.
He has used this particular light to play with shadows and contrasts. This allows him to model urban spaces and create works with a pictorial rendering.
In these photographs, shapes, colours and textures interact and form a language of their own. Stripped of all visual references, these photographs question our perception of reality, and open us up to an imaginary world between reality and abstraction.
