Melting Point / Toyota
Stéphane Couturier series ‘Melting Point’ presents a Toyota assembly plant in Valenciennes (France). Emphasizing the cycles of construction and demolition endemic to modern industrialized life, the photographs possess dynamic vertical and horizontal lines, elegant curves, and brilliant effects of light and indigenous colour. Using a large-format camera, Couturier creates crisply detailed prints that expand the viewer’s awareness of how a photograph can look and how urban occurrences can be conceptualized. Each picture is printed from a sandwiching of two moments in time, creating highly abstract yet precisely detailed images. People, machines, car parts, wires and more all compete for the viewer’s attention—images of industry simultaneously out of control and in perfect harmony.
