“ILLUSIONS”, an exhibition of photographs by French poet/photographer Daniel Pons, extends poetic images into the visual field.

Working around a scenic lake near his home, the 50-years-old Parisian has photographed everyday scenes and subjects with sensitivity and feeling, creating moods and impressions that confront the viewer, rather the photographic image itself.

Pons’s exhibition, which has already successfully toured the world, is being shown throughout the Queensland Arts Council and will be on display at the Imagery Gallery, South Brisbane, until July 29.

Pons’ sensitive approach to capturing the essence of a subject is a reminder of the ideals and qualities of the early impressionists painters. He reduces the solid visible into a fugitive image using a delicate combination of color, line and shape.

His photographs reveal a feeling for beauty which requires no great search for any elusive or complicated meaning because Pons is exhibiting his intimacy with the subject.

His manipulation of color and tonal graduation to achieve his effects is excellent. He has balanced his colors with apparent ease, which in some instances presents us with a variety that ranges from strong blues and soft washes to the warm autumn tones of fallen leaves.

Unfortunately, because of its skill in the rendition of color, the few black and white photographs suffer from a lack of feeling which most of the other prints display so well.

The exhibition consists of a series of photographs focused on three or four common subjects, each successful as an individual piece, but at the same time, used as a series to develop a central idea.

As a series of photographs of a woman’s reflection on the water’s edge, ‘Apparition” emerges fully to achieve a unity and calmness about the subject, so much so that the existence of the real object doesn’t intrude.

In “Autumn”, we are given a dual vision of the world – the reality of a fallen leaf, faded and floating inside the illusion, a reflection of the trees by the lakeside.

It is this use of reflections which allows us to look into Pons’ private world and I’m sure that people who see this exhibition certainly won’t be looking at reflections in the same way again.

Ray Cash