Captured without gaudy embellishment, the flowers subtly portrayed by Edouard Janssens are radiant, yet devoid of all artifice, emerging dramatically from a deep obscurity like the notes of an impromptu suite in black and white that secretly beckon us to join the ephemeral dance of passing time.

Tiptoeing between flamboyancy and reticence, audacity and hesitation, they are sometimes coyly draped, modest in their intimacy, yet often offer up an unveiled sensuality. These blooms are the anonymous and immortal witnesses of those that were once the stars of our gardens. Their uniqueness and multiplicity recalls a succession of delicate portraits of the women in our dreams, whose eternal charm they share.

Throughout this series of exquisitely restrained photographs, Edouard Janssens tirelessly invites us to seek the essential, to grasp the truth of these floral entities. To do so, he exposes them without mercy, revealing their naked and original beauty, forcing their innate character into their light. He does so in a circuitous exploration that takes him from a languid collection of petals, to the secret recesses of the sepal, to a solitary stem, brandished as the symbol of the joy of living.

The human condition adopts the features of a plant, and the variations of light according to the ebbs and flows of position and energy acts as a replacement for the traditional dialogue between life and death. We are reminded once again of the theme of obsolescence that preoccupies the artist.

To satisfy this intense thirst for simplicity, and to push the aesthetics of shape and substance to its limit, Edouard Janssens has espoused chosen to work in black and white using medium format traditional film for this penetrating photographic series.

View the pictures.