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The more closely I examine an image, the less certain it becomes. Forms dissolve, transform and reappear. At the limits of what my technique can reveal, intuition takes over. Each gesture responds to what the image suggests, unpredictable yet deliberate, until the recorded image becomes something beyond what was originally seen.

My work is an ongoing body of photographic images created through years of observing the night sky. Every image begins with light that has travelled for centuries or even millennia before reaching the camera. My work is not about inventing another reality, but about staying with that recorded light long enough for it to reveal something I could never have imagined.

THE STORY

My work keeps returning to one night, more than ten years ago. Looking through a window, I was caught by a point of light whose colour and movement seemed impossible to fix. I photographed it almost instinctively. Curiosity became fascination, and fascination became a practice.

At first it was a study. I wanted to know as much as possible: which star would be visible on which night, where to look, when. I called it playing archaeologist of the sky, with the means I had. I made many mistakes in night photography, and I chose not to be trained. I wanted to feel the gesture and learn intuitively, without a manual.

I was chasing images like NASA’s, as close as possible to our idea of truth. Then I began to be drawn to the beauty of the wrong image: reflections, the shadows of other bodies at other distances, the light itself. I moved towards a more creative gesture, guided by what those forms and colours awakened in me. I learned to bring my imagination to the image without premeditation, minute after minute, and to draw out the beautiful from the dark. The light of black.

There were years when I could have stopped. Life left little room for it, and I could have stopped believing in what I was doing. But it was stronger than me. What had begun as an escape became an emancipation. The gesture did not fade; it freed itself, and it has not stopped enriching me since.

Today I return to my photographs, isolate minute areas and enlarge them until scale becomes uncertain. A fragment of recorded light may resemble a cell, a landscape, a body, or something I cannot name. Sometimes an image disappears in the process; sometimes what seemed insignificant becomes the work itself. My tools are almost rustic: a Canon 5D Mark IV, a Sigma 600 mm telephoto lens, an amateur telescope, and time. I work the light that was recorded; I add nothing to it.

The paper is the final decision. Hahnemühle Photo Rag, thick as velvet, gives the image the feel of an engraving, an imprint in time, rich like an object from another age; I choose it for the more pictorial images and for large formats, where it has a very singular presence. Fujiflex has a brilliance that leaves nothing to chance; it is raw and true, and makes the image alive.

The artwork is not the sky, and not the file: it is the printed trace of a decision to stay with recorded light until another scale of reality emerges.

The portfolio is followed by First Experiments, Pictorial Stages and Source Notebooks, which trace the evolution of the practice from its earliest explorations to the images presented today.

BIOGRAPHY

Deborah Parienti (b. 1979) is a French visual artist based in Paris. Self-taught, she has spent more than ten years photographing the night sky, developing a process in which observation itself became a way of making images.

Her work has been shown in Paris at RCM Galerie (Étoiles intérieures, 2023, on the eve of Paris Photo) and at Salon /H (Ode aux étoiles, 2024, curated by Jacqueline Frydman). She is represented by Lebenson Gallery, London.

She is currently developing an evolving body of work bringing together finished photographs, process studies and source notebooks, tracing a single practice from first experiments to the images presented today.

The more closely I examine an image, the less certain it becomes. Forms dissolve, transform and reappear. At the limits of what my technique can reveal, intuition takes over. Each gesture responds to what the image suggests, unpredictable yet deliberate, until the recorded image becomes something beyond what was originally seen. My work is an ongoing body of photographic images created through years of observing the night sky. Every image begins with light that has travelled for centuries or even millennia before reaching the camera. My work is not about inventing another reality, but about staying with that recorded light long enough for it to reveal something I could never have imagined. THE STORY My work keeps returning to one night, more than ten years ago. Looking through a window, I was caught by a point of light whose colour and movement seemed impossible to fix. I photographed it almost instinctively. Curiosity became fascination, and fascination became a practice. At first it was a study. I wanted to know as much as possible: which star would be visible on which night, where to look, when. I called it playing archaeologist of the sky, with the means I had. I made many mistakes in night photography, and I chose not to be trained. I wanted to feel the gesture and learn intuitively, without a manual. I was chasing images like NASA’s, as close as possible to our idea of truth. Then I began to be drawn to the beauty of the wrong image: reflections, the shadows of other bodies at other distances, the light itself. I moved towards a more creative gesture, guided by what those forms and colours awakened in me. I learned to bring my imagination to the image without premeditation, minute after minute, and to draw out the beautiful from the dark. The light of black. There were years when I could have stopped. Life left little room for it, and I could have stopped believing in what I was doing. But it was stronger than me. What had begun as an escape became an emancipation. The gesture did not fade; it freed itself, and it has not stopped enriching me since. Today I return to my photographs, isolate minute areas and enlarge them until scale becomes uncertain. A fragment of recorded light may resemble a cell, a landscape, a body, or something I cannot name. Sometimes an image disappears in the process; sometimes what seemed insignificant becomes the work itself. My tools are almost rustic: a Canon 5D Mark IV, a Sigma 600 mm telephoto lens, an amateur telescope, and time. I work the light that was recorded; I add nothing to it. The paper is the final decision. Hahnemühle Photo Rag, thick as velvet, gives the image the feel of an engraving, an imprint in time, rich like an object from another age; I choose it for the more pictorial images and for large formats, where it has a very singular presence. Fujiflex has a brilliance that leaves nothing to chance; it is raw and true, and makes the image alive. The artwork is not the sky, and not the file: it is the printed trace of a decision to stay with recorded light until another scale of reality emerges. The portfolio is followed by First Experiments, Pictorial Stages and Source Notebooks, which trace the evolution of the practice from its earliest explorations to the images presented today. BIOGRAPHY Deborah Parienti (b. 1979) is a French visual artist based in Paris. Self-taught, she has spent more than ten years photographing the night sky, developing a process in which observation itself became a way of making images. Her work has been shown in Paris at RCM Galerie (Étoiles intérieures, 2023, on the eve of Paris Photo) and at Salon /H (Ode aux étoiles, 2024, curated by Jacqueline Frydman). She is represented by Lebenson Gallery, London. She is currently developing an evolving body of work bringing together finished photographs, process studies and source notebooks, tracing a single practice from first experiments to the images presented today.