Shadows of Desire: Benoit Demoriane's Erotic Black and White Photography

There is something distinctly European, decadent and shadowy in the fin-de-siècle style in the photographs of the contemporary French photographer Benoit Demoriane. These pictures bring to mind the Symbolist painters of Paris or the Jugendstil painter of Vienna who wrapped sensuality in veils of dreams. Similarly, Demoriane situates his eroticism within a world of suggestion; a mood, a symbol, a ripple of water in a dark fountain at night, a shadow on the street corner, a note of music. These photographs contain a quiet charge, a suspended breath, as though the moment might dissolve if touched too roughly. In this sense his work feels more poetic, theatrical and film-like even, than just purely photographical. Demoriane’s pictures make me think of the cigarette smoke, cabaret, shady nightclubs in the Berlin in the eighties, music of Nick Cave and Tindersticks, faded roses, red wine and red lipstick; red which appears rarely in his work, though we can see it in Fig.1. and it truly adds that touch of passion to his otherwise black and white oeuvre. Red like blood and pomegranates. The simplicity of these pictures give way to the powers of the imagination. And it is easy to be smitten with them, or to let oneself sink into fantasies. Demoriane’s women are either captured beautifully naked as is seen in Fig.4., or they are seen showing off their stockings, Fig.2., or their sexy lace lingerie as we see in Fig.3. and Fig.5. At times they are undressing slowly, as is seen in Fig.6., or just lounging around with disinterest.

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Dark Kingdom

Eroticism thrives in tension and Demoriane understands this with precision. The tension between real and concealed, between sharp light and soft darkness, between the viewer’s gaze and the mystery of the model. Demoriane’s women often avert their eyes, or their faces vanish into the shadow, as though they are preserving a sacred core of self even while they are offering their body to our eyes, to feast and enjoy. This preserves an aura of dignity and the woman is never really just an object, but seems sovereign in that dark kingdom, that Hades’ underworld, that Demoriane in his pictures creates. The woman choses what we see, she dictates the rhythm of the unveiling. Demoriane understands that eroticism is not simply about the body being revealed, about skin being exposed as much as possible, but about the mystery that shrouds it. Working primarily in black and white, as we see in these amazing examples, Demoriane conjures images where light and shadow become accomplice in desire, where what is concealed seduces more than what is shown.

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Benoit Demorione is active on Instagram

Click HERE for the soft eroticism of David Hamilton’s 1970s photography

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