Thierry Fontaine plays with what makes an image, trying to change the semantics of it, the way other French artists from the 1980’s and 1990’s did, redefining the status of the image and broadening the possibilities of various visual interpretations. This conceptual stand reminds us of singular works such as Jean-Luc Moulène’s or Paul Pouvreau’s. Both modify in their own way the common objective depiction to question our perception not only of the subject inside an image but rather of the “image itself” , using principles of nesting dolls that deliberately mix the pattern, the reality they photography and the image they shoot. This process leads us to constantly go back and forth between the visual object and the semeiological references. Sense-making –a necessary process to penetrate a piece and potentially grasp its full meaning making it your own- can only happen in a mental space that one can define as aesthetical, depending on a complicity between the author and his game.
