maxime ballesteros was born in Lyon, France. after studying in
ERBASE (fine art school of St Etienne), maxime graduated in 2007 with a
DNSEP (master diploma of art). His photographs have been featured in
solo and group exhibitions in France, Belgium, Russia, Germany. he has
been based in Berlin since 2007.
his clients and publications include:
Apple, Artforum, Ayn Magazine, Bright Magazine, Dazed Digital, Deutsch post, Diskurs, Dont Shoot The Messengers, Extra Fein, Flaunt, I-D, Interview Magazine, Kinki Magazine, Louis Vuitton, Monocle, Musikexpress, Novembre, Philips, Purple Diary, Saatchi Online, Sleek Magazine, Style.com, Styleby, SugarHigh, Tank, Twin, V Magazine, Vice Germany, Visions, Zeit Magazin, 7 For All Mankind…
Maxime Ballesteros’s photographs share the same DNA as Kurt Cobain’s rough wail, Picasso’s sketches, Bill T. Jones’s walk and Raymond Carver’s sentences. They arise from common acts that people regularly perform, yet when they are realized through uniquely talented artists, they become profound. Ballesteros is a Lyon-born and Berlin-based photographer whose gritty images of rough reality evoke the work of Nan Goldin, Corinne Day, Larry Clark and Ryan McGinley. Like the products of legions of snappers inspired by these photographers’ intimate documentary imagery, Ballesteros’s portraits, still-lives and reportage have a raw immediacy. But unlike the countless copyists of the snap-shot aesthetic, his work genuinely shares the poetics, insight and empathy of the masters of his medium. His work, even his still-lives, pulses with an intense and genuine sexual charge and captivating empathy.
Glossy, processed, polished photography is much easier to produce than Ballesteros’s images. His portraits, including commercial images, offer striking insights into his sitters’ personalities. Inherent in his imagery is an awareness that the sitters are responding to him. The quality of rawness in his work comes less from its natural and loose look which strips sitters of their pretensions and reveals the humanity of their flaws and charms. Instead, it emanates from the sense that there is an intimate connection between Ballesteros and his subjects, and that the viewer is witnessing something fleeting and intensely private.
Ana Finel Honigman
Not that we could confirm, but we believe he sleeps with his camera. Firmly rooted in Berlin’s young and quirky art scene, he is bound to become something of an encyclopaedist of today’s Berlin.
Annika Von Taube
© 2010 Maxime Ballesteros
All photographs by Maxime Ballesteros. All right reserved, no part of these photographs may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photo copying, or other-wise, without prior permission in writing from the copyright owner.
ERBASE (fine art school of St Etienne), maxime graduated in 2007 with a
DNSEP (master diploma of art). His photographs have been featured in
solo and group exhibitions in France, Belgium, Russia, Germany. he has
been based in Berlin since 2007.
his clients and publications include:
Apple, Artforum, Ayn Magazine, Bright Magazine, Dazed Digital, Deutsch post, Diskurs, Dont Shoot The Messengers, Extra Fein, Flaunt, I-D, Interview Magazine, Kinki Magazine, Louis Vuitton, Monocle, Musikexpress, Novembre, Philips, Purple Diary, Saatchi Online, Sleek Magazine, Style.com, Styleby, SugarHigh, Tank, Twin, V Magazine, Vice Germany, Visions, Zeit Magazin, 7 For All Mankind…
Maxime Ballesteros’s photographs share the same DNA as Kurt Cobain’s rough wail, Picasso’s sketches, Bill T. Jones’s walk and Raymond Carver’s sentences. They arise from common acts that people regularly perform, yet when they are realized through uniquely talented artists, they become profound. Ballesteros is a Lyon-born and Berlin-based photographer whose gritty images of rough reality evoke the work of Nan Goldin, Corinne Day, Larry Clark and Ryan McGinley. Like the products of legions of snappers inspired by these photographers’ intimate documentary imagery, Ballesteros’s portraits, still-lives and reportage have a raw immediacy. But unlike the countless copyists of the snap-shot aesthetic, his work genuinely shares the poetics, insight and empathy of the masters of his medium. His work, even his still-lives, pulses with an intense and genuine sexual charge and captivating empathy.
Glossy, processed, polished photography is much easier to produce than Ballesteros’s images. His portraits, including commercial images, offer striking insights into his sitters’ personalities. Inherent in his imagery is an awareness that the sitters are responding to him. The quality of rawness in his work comes less from its natural and loose look which strips sitters of their pretensions and reveals the humanity of their flaws and charms. Instead, it emanates from the sense that there is an intimate connection between Ballesteros and his subjects, and that the viewer is witnessing something fleeting and intensely private.
Ana Finel Honigman
Not that we could confirm, but we believe he sleeps with his camera. Firmly rooted in Berlin’s young and quirky art scene, he is bound to become something of an encyclopaedist of today’s Berlin.
Annika Von Taube
© 2010 Maxime Ballesteros
All photographs by Maxime Ballesteros. All right reserved, no part of these photographs may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photo copying, or other-wise, without prior permission in writing from the copyright owner.