Ivan Binet
Répertoire d’horizons

SÉBASTIEN MARTIN

Walking is a solitary act. The walker follows paths without a set itinerary, often giving himself over to reverie and finally arriving at a place where no one but him has ever set foot. By chance in his wanderings, he may happen upon another walker, also lost in his own universe. Nevertheless, they may exchange a glance, a smile, a signal bearing testimony to the brief encounter of their respective worlds. Somehow, imagination has brought them together. When Ivan Binet, the walker-artist, represents nature through photography, it is as if he is inviting us to contact between bodies – an encounter that will take place within the fiction of the montages that he presents us with.

Although the collage is practically undetectable, some details pop out to inform us of the possible illusory character of the unbroken lines of pictures. Making judicious use of digital technology, Binet melts images into each other. He shows us landscapes that are familiar though unknown, and this is where the richness of his work is fully evoked. For in the very notion of landscape, we find the idea of constructions of the mind, the framing of a given reality. The artist thus communicates his own experience of reality, including, of course, the distinct subjectivity involved in the process of arranging the images. So, we are there, as spectators, reading these long bands almost as we would read a book, inventing our own short stories as we look, and in the end re-creating the walker-artist’s initial path. Imagination takes form.