AQUARIUM TALE

ESTELLE MAGNIN

// Estelle is a visual artist and photographer based in Paris, France. After spending some two years in Australia just after her studies she developed a real passion for photography. During an art residency in Beijing she started painting on her photos. Fishes are a recurring theme for Estelle, and she shared her series “Aquarium Tale”. We are publishing it on 8 June, World Ocean Day.

Estelle has exhibited her work in China, France and Italy and hopes to collaborate with galleries on a long-term basis.

“Art is what makes life more interesting than art.”

Robert Filliou

What draws you to the arts?

“My close family has always been into art and at home there were many art books and my mum’s paintings that we could discuss about. We visited lots of museums when traveling and I took drawing classes early, photography came later. Looking at other people’s art does make my life brighter, with more to think and more to wonder. But nature in general is more essential to me to get inspired and to create. I feel there are so many beauties and phenomena I want to catch, use and transform in my art.”

What do you like best about artful photography such as the images you have shared with us?

“I like the way colours are getting out of the dark and how dreamlike are the shapes of the fishes, inviting us to imagine our own story. A friend and author of two books, Justine Arnal, wrote a poem about the series “Aquarium Tale” that you can read on my website. I like to collaborate and see how it inspires another field of creation, here the writing.”

The series “Aquarium Tale” was originally conceived with alternating photos of landscapes and fishes taken in different parts of the world. Some are digital collages that she made using her photos. “There is a science-fiction side in which everyone is free to create their own narrative, guided by the poetry of light in surface and in depth,” Estelle explains. “For me, fishes are wonderful creatures especially because their irridescence reflects the light, their colours can be incredible, and it moves like fire. They are shining like stars, like the two moonfishes who are reflecting light in that deep blue water. There are rays of light coming out of the fishes like in a sci-fi way, as if they were a kind of spaceship. I like to think that in water there’s also the sky and the universe.”

“In the novel “Cottage Landor” of the poet Edgar Allan Poe, he talks about reflections on the lake up to the point that fishes inside look like flying fishes; they appear suspended in the air. Water becomes a universal homeland. Also, Poe forms the double concept of “star-isle” when he contemplates the water: a liquid star is prisoner of the lake much like a star is an island of the sky. I like this idea of encompassing the different elements. In a way, my photo series is an attempt of evasion and of freedom. First, I tried to make the fishes escape out of their aquarium; and second, to free the viewer out of reality through the fishes shapes and details, to enter into their own vision of imagination,” Estelle adds.

Estelle has exhibited this work in Turin, Italy at Liquida Photofestival. In the exhibition two photos were shown in a lightbox. “I guess I decided that light had to come from inside precisely because through the fishes’ shapes and colours create for us another world to see through themselves.”

We have selected a set from among the fish photos, which have an almost ethereal beauty, with wonderful patterns, colours, and moods. The image “Albinos” is an example of a photo on which Estelle has painted (click on the images to have them open up and see their titles). In our selection we have aimed for formal harmony, but also tried to tell a story – with a somewhat cruel twist in the end.

On World Ocean Day, we remember and spread the word about the need to save the oceans and the life within them, for us and for them. So what better day that this to feature this beautiful series of fishes.

Click on the photos to see a larger image in original proportion. Some images may be cropped for layout.