Photographer Jacques Garnier is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘ESTERO’. To see Jacques’ body of work, click on any photograph.

My goal with this ESTERO series is not to capture or reproduce a moment, but to generate a new – and quite different – moment. To see properly it is necessary to remove the obstacles. Removing objects from their context causes a disruption. This disruption creates an opportunity for an immediate emotional reaction to the place itself. The image is not necessarily ‘of’ something. Instead, it provides a space for viewers to experience their own emotional responses. Freed from the constraints of context, I aim to create images of stillness, portals that invite people to apply their own interpretation. I find fascinating the tension between the mind (which struggles to understand the image) and the body (which experiences the emotions evoked by the piece).

Artist Statement:

For the last 25 years award-winning artist Jacques Garnier has been contributing to the cultural production of fine art photography on a national and international scale. From abstraction to conceptual driven archival work, Garnier has been featured in galleries and museums around the world including Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CAFA, Chinese Academy of fine art Beijing, Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans and many more. 

While Garnier's earlier work concentrated on imagery of urban redistribution and repurposing in the American landscape his more recent work has taken a more minimalist tone using abstraction and negative space in an effort to still the chaos that ceaselessly surrounds us. All of Garnier's projects share these common elements: exacting framing, elimination of the superfluous, compelling graphics, stringent attention to detail and a meditative calmness.

Garnier's work is held in numerous museum permanent collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, the Laguna Art Museum, the Southeast Museum of Photography, University of California Irvine Special Collection and Archives.

All images and text © Jacques Garnier