Landscape is a pursuit that is very much in vogue. So too are mise-en-scène and image construction using digital technology; they bring results in all respects, often for the worse and sometimes to the better. The youthful work of Maia Flore –it would appear to be an artistic name rather tailor-made for her intentions– possesses at the very least the enormous advantage of saving us from the demonstrative heavy-handedness that currently abounds. Because, on the contrary, it is about making everyone’s dream come true, bursting into flight, escaping the earth’s gravity and all that pulls us downwards and into fall, through fundamentally poetic means. The combination of a fragile dandelion balloon of the finest hues –for the impetus seems lighter than it actually is– impels us toward the heavens. And it offers us a chance both to revisit the world, transcending and using it in a different way, and to track its delights. These images (because rather than photographs that is what they are) flirt with the notion of illustration, border on the decorative in their manner of seduction, although they become, in an almost naïf way, a tribute to unbridled happiness.

Maia Flore was born in France in 1988. Graduated in 2010 from the Gobelins School of the Image in Paris. Her series have been shown at Les Rencontres d’Arles, the Photography Festival at Reggio Emilia, Festival of Young European Photography and Circulations in Paris, and selected for national and international prizes such as the World Sony Photography award in 2013. She is a member of Agence VU´ and is presently artist in residence at the Thelma Saddof Center for the Arts in Wisconsin (USA) where she is working on a new project.

Maia Flore (France, 1988)
Sleep Elevations

2013 edition
Outdoor installation
Venue: Algorta Metro Station
Collaborator: Metro Bilbao