Romain Ruiz

TALES FROM THE NORTH

With his photographic series «Tales from the North», Romain Ruiz innovates a visual story where everyday life becomes a tale.
It is in his region of birth — the North, indeed — that he recorded this substantive work and long visual research. It is there, in the midst of a colourful population, that Romain chose to give birth to his first photographic collection. It aspires to unveil the universal: to perceive the grain of the soul which is without blush.
In his «Tales from the North» series, Romain Ruiz shows the ambition to show that in every person, it does not matter their age—human beings retain the soul of children. Each person, whatever their fate may have been, keeps the child that they have been deep inside. They keep it and protect it. In the last instance, they reveal it under the lens of the photographer.
And what do children dream of doing? They create characters for themselves and live them emotionally to the depths of themselves. Ruiz invites us to enter into their enchantment while hearing their tales in whispers.
To achieve his ends, in the instant of a flash, the author photographs these everyday people at the exact moment in their existence when each and everyone creates their own phantasmagoria. The photographer reveals to the viewer the narratives of the people of the North. Romain Ruiz captures moments suspended between everyday life and the fantastic world that the photographer tames and fixes for the public, filled with humour, absurdity, and extravagance.

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THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Romain Ruiz is a French Street Photographer based in Paris and operating in all of France. In his photography work, he tries to detach as much as possible from «super-realism» or the representation thereof. On the contrary, the photographer aims to connect his work with esotericism and fanciful dreams.
For Ruiz, it is crucial to be able to capture everyday life and make it something else. Because of this, his goal is to craft powerful narratives with two distant realities in one picture, conjoined by a single scene of everyday life. The more distant the relationship between the two realities is, the stronger the image will result. And where does he find esotericism and imaginative scenes in daily life? Like many other countries, France legends and myths survived until today: he tries to reenact customs and folklore through his photographs.

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