“A Good Time to Reload” by Damien Jélaine

“A Good Time to Reload” by Damien Jélaine, Guadeloupe, 2021, 12in x 16in.

The essence of my photographs lies in this tension, in the search for a delicate balance between captivating beauty and unspeakable brutality. It is within this space between two worlds, between their shadows and our light, between our shadows and their light, that I endeavor to forge a unique artistic language, ruthless and tender simultaneously. Photographs that, I hope, will offer the spectator a disconcerting immersion into the history, complexity and the birth of rage as consequences of colonization, while provoking contemplation on my role in our troubled world.

Damien Jélaine was born in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, in 1991. At age seven, his mother introduced him to American cinema, and by the age of eight, he knew he wanted to make films. In 2009, he flew to Paris to start film school, as it was not possible to pursue his filmmaking ambitions in Guadeloupe at that time. In 2011, he returned to his homeland in Guadeloupe to write and direct his first feature-length film, titled “Karukera Fever,” which explored a domestic war that never materialized. After graduating in 2012, he purchased a camera and began taking photographs in various locations, including the Caribbean, South Asia, Paris, and Australia. This photographic work was titled “Unbabylonians,” and was exhibited in Guadeloupe and in Paris simultaneously. In 2013, he flew back to Paris to direct his second feature-length film, “Public Bitches,” which went on to win the Best Screenplay Award at the World Music and Independent Film Festival of Washington D.C. in the following year. In 2018, he traveled to Los Angeles to sell his last screenplay and ended up staying in the city for a while. During this time, he traveled across the United States and had a transformative experience that changed his perspective on the American mythology. He then wrote his first American screenplay, “Audrey, The Woman They Loved Twice”, screenplay which was later selected at the Sundance Film Festival the same year. His later photographic work centered around the concept of the internationalism of revolution and features an anatomically provocative New Representation of the black body in arts, which he refers to as “photobending.” In this work, he aims to strike a balance between an undeniable beauty used as a tool, a strong necessity of violence as a counterstrike, and photojournalism-realism as a visual weapon. He believes in human dignity as well as the concept of retribution in Art. He draws inspiration from a diverse array of figures and artists, including James Nachtwey, Frida Kahlo, Ciara, Takato Yamamoto, Thomas Sankara, Chester Himes, Kanye West, Malcolm X, Sebastiao Salgado, Alfonso Cuaron, United Colors of Benetton, Olivier N’Goma, Kurt Cobain, Ernesto Guevara, and David Simon.