m.a.g.
DENIS PIEL. EARTH ON THE SKIN
Words by Jo García Garrido, Fantú Editor in Chief. March 2025
Each year of work by this French photographer, educated between Australia and the United States, is, in his words, “a period of exploration and adventure”. He constantly challenges himself to go beyond and break his own limits. His career encompasses everything from fashion photography, which began in the United States, to the present, where, at 81 years old, he focuses more on the symbiosis between humans and nature.
Delving into his work, we discover images with a clear aesthetic and cinematic form that seem to tell a story, inviting us to immerse ourselves in a narrative contained within a single snapshot. The bodies he captures convey a special kind of sensuality, and his photography always encourages us to discover something else. I comment to Denis that I see something more than simple sensuality. “ It’s the rawness of the human being and its parallel to the beauty of nature and the constant need for propagation. Sex is essentiel in both cases and sensuality and beauty fundamental.”
He really works like a filmmaker, even when he is photographing, constructing a story through careful staging and achieving bold compositions. We see how his models exist and move naturally, without posing, connecting their bodies with the environment. But Denis Piel is not only a photographer; he is a true filmmaker and documentarian. This is why, although Piel admires other photographers, he cites a more substantial influence from renowned filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick, Satyajit Ray, Bertolucci, Antonioni, Cassavetes, Bergman, Kazan, Truffaut, and Kurosawa, as he himself mentions.
In his early days, in the 1970s, he was hired by Conde Nast, through which he worked not only in fashion and portraits of famous figures from the worlds of intellect, politics, art, and cinema, among others, but also in advertising for major brands. Among other accolades, he received the Leica Excellence Award for his contribution to commercial photography in 1987.
In 1989, Piel left Condé Nast to focus on film, a period that lasted until 2020, when he decided to move with his family to Château de Padiès, a restored medieval castle located in Lempaut, in the southwest of France. The property includes the castle as well as Les Jardins du Château de Padiès. The gardens of Padiès are an agroecology experiment for Piel, serving as his current source of inspiration for his photographic practice. “It is inspired by watching the workers on my son’s organic farm and their essential relation to the earth. They inspired the project Down to Earth” he explain to us.
This project, Down to Earth, is one that the photographer states is the result of the new inspiration brought on by his new home: ‘It radically changed the way I see the world, and I was also ready for this to happen.’ In this project, we truly observe that symbiosis between humans and nature merging in a natural way. By changing his life, he changed his vision of his surroundings and the way he captures them.“ It’s called progress and the only constant is change but it is not totally the case with me as what has stayed constant is my eye . The shift is incorporating nature more fully into my interpretation of the body and life’s evolution. It’s about birth and death and evolution. We see it constantly in nature’s rebirth” Denis comments when asked about that change.
We wonder if he is still interested in cinema or if he is now once again more focused on photography. “Still very taken by film and do regret not having followed through on several feature film projects that I wrote outlines for. Time, life and other projects took off . My first film “ love is Blind” was inspirational for my move away from fashion and more commercial work”, he tell us.
“I will continue with expansible my Padièscapes project with showing the évolutional sequencing of landscaping a garden with beauty and Peace. And a complete major retrospective showing the emotional through line of all my work.
And and and …. who knows“
The Staley Wise Gallery, founded by Etheleen Staley and Takouhy Wise, specializes in photography and has been followed by the members of this magazine since its inception in 1981. It now showcases the universe of Denis Piel, offering a review of his extensive and varied career that includes his sensual and cinematic photographs for Vogue and designers like Donna Karan in the 1980s, portraits, the Down to Earth project, as well as his abstract works, Padièscapes, inspired by his organic sustainable farm in the southwest of France.
For those in New York City, a visit to the Staley Wise Gallery will be worthwhile. For those who do not have that opportunity, we invite you to visit the gallery’s website as well as the artist Denis Piel.
