The Rain Series – Karen Kalou
Kalou approaches The Rain Series with an impressionist’s eye, trying to capture the transient effects of light and movement in Beirut’s rainy landscapes. Quite a seasonal modus operandi that Kalou uses to explore and deconstruct the paradoxes of life in Beirut to raise such questions as : This city can be extreme and aggressive, but can I make it seem less literal? Can I create dreamy landscapes out of harsh realities? Will I find open compositions? Or would I end up finding a lot more than I thought?
Heavier drops of rain to created dreamier landscapes, Kalou got to know everything about the different raindrops and the effects she can create with them. Kalou is able to shape the type of landscape she would like to capture through her camera and produce: melancholic urban landscapes with rounded edges, great natural light that gleams through the grey high skies, sights that one would not expect to see in Beirut.
Not unknown aesthetics, as the impressionist painters were strongly influenced by photography for its accurate depiction of light and its changing qualities, one could notice Renoirs ever changing shadows dancing with the light, aside from the fact that it might have taken him several seasons before finishing his painting.
It is a quenching change to see such photography, letting go of the restraining urban context and capturing its soul, through the passage of time. It really is about the rhythm of the city, the flow blended with the light of these now abstract Beirut brushstrokes.
