Portraits

Etienne Renzo's qualities as a portraitist are undeniable. First and foremost, he loves people, he says. And some people give it back to him in pictures. What he seeks in portraiture is aura. This he can easily restore for certain subjects. For others, it's impossible to convey. You can see and feel it.
Taken for themselves or set in context, there's something magnetic about Etienne Renzo's particularly successful portraits. They touch on a dimension that goes beyond the image and the photograph. It's as if, through photography, he's sending us back to the generic pictorial dimension of art. To the point of revealing the ineffable of being and living through the image. Etienne Renzo's portraits are invaluable in that they reveal a little-talked-about dimension of photography, namely its energetic, invisible dimension, which can also be found in certain paintings. This is particularly true of the astonishing series of ordinary angels, some of whom took to the skies on his aerodrome.
As Etienne Renzo explains: "Photographing angels means rediscovering as far as possible the magic of everyday life, the wonder of life in peace, so that it doesn't fall into oblivion. In this way, my photographs fulfill the task of the angels. Unveiling these images is my profane and imperfect solution to a traditionally divine task".