Claire Latouche : without fanfare...

Claire was one of the first 12 members of Picto Benelux, which she joined on 30 August 2010. This Friday, November 11th, her courageous battle against illness came to an end.

She graduated from the École de Photographie à la Ville de Bruxelles (1992) and from the Institute of Graphic Industries in Brussels (1998 - computer graphics). She was a member of the Association Photographique Brussels Miroir until 2012, of the Atelier d'Écriture Photographique de Louvain La Neuve from 2012 to 2016, and of the PEPS collective from 2012 until now..

As a black and white film photographer, she liked to remain “master” of her photo from the shooting to the final print in order to fully express her personality and feelings. She liked street animation, reportage and children photography.
She was noticed by the city of Brussels, which adopted her series of photos on the “comic strip walls” to illustrate a leaflet dedicated to their discovery tour. In these photos, Claire tried to capture scenes in the foreground that were related to the mural in the background. This remarkable series of “murals of the City of Brussels” was also exhibited at the XXXth Comic Strip Festival in Angoulème (France) in 2003.

She then turned her attention to bromoil and Van Dyke Brown. But her real passion was for pinhole photography. She liked to take side roads leading to other paths, to other visions, to give time back to time, to wait patiently for the alchemy to work, to find the emotion of the changing light seeming to radiate from the long exposure times and... discover the pleasure of making her own “camera”.

She exhibited in these places, among others:

- Galerie Verhaeren, Brussels, 1999 en 2002
- Festival de la Bande Dessinée et de l'Image, Valbonne/Sophia Antipolis (France), 2000
- Jacques Franck Cultural Centre, Brussels, 2001
- XXXe Festival de la Bande Dessinée, Angoulème (France), 2003
- Cultural Centre of Schaerbeek, 2004 - Museum of Louvain-La-Neuve, 2012
and participated innumerous collective exhibitions, amongst which:
- Association Photographique Brussels Miroir (Brussels, 2000, 2002, 2011)
- Atelier d'Écriture Photographique (Louvain La Neuve, 2012, 2014, 2016)
- Collectif photographique PEPS (Artists' House, Anderlecht 2018 - Ferme Rose, Uccle 2021)
- Picto Benelux (Studio Baxton, Brussels 2015-16).

Claire, we were lucky to have been able to travel a while together. These moments are precious to us, and will remain in our memories.