Christine Tabusso Photographer - Artist

According to Christine Tabusso, « representing oneself is by no means a natural act, on the contrary, what do you think about that? »

« I have been photographing myself for twenty years. As a teenager I already staged my classmates in photographs taken in a studio. When I am transformed, when I am dressing up, using tricks like wigs or makeup, I use my body as a material.

I work on my photo shots alone or with an assistant. I am both the model and the photographer. I used for many years a 6x7 format camera with a footswitch, but today I turned to digital. Currently, I superpose shots thanks to different softwares.

I discovered the act of photographing at the age of 14, through a photo club. After obtaining a Literary Baccalaureate, I was able to present myself at the entrance contest of Epiar, at Villa Arson. This is where I deepened my concept of the "iconographic" representation of self-portraiture, and the loss of identity that this research generates.

Art and creation offer the artist the opportunity to make any dream come true. Indeed, I created fictional living beings, stars, myths, supermodels. Maybe, like Lisa Karoll (see below), I would have liked to be a rock star? ...

I get a lot of inspiration from popular culture like reality TV, I cut out rock, fashion and cinema magazines and I'm interested in this phenomenon that allows a character to become at a given moment a star, elevated at the level of the divine. Andy Warhol said that everyone could be a star 15 minutes in their life ...

The artists that I'm interested in on the current art scene are Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Sophie Calle, Paul Devautour, Pierre Molinier, Pierre and Gilles, Gilbert and Georges ...

To conclude, I could say that my work has evolved over time, according to the experience, my environment, and the surprises of life.

What about the character of Lisa Karoll? Having for years played synthesizer in a rock band that had its heyday, and after stopping this stage activity, I decided to bring back all the rock culture and experience that I had acquired in the artistic field, inventing Lisa Karoll, the singer of my dreams. Lisa gradually became an autonomous character and then a gothic rock star. But why 'Lisa'? "Lisa Jane" is the first piece by David Bowie, who has used the concept of "character" in the scenic field throughout his whole career. "Karoll" is the namesake of Carroll, author of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". Lisa Karoll enters the artistic field in the same way as Marcel Duchamp's creature, Rose Selavy. Lisa Karoll is myth, fiction and transcendence of my identity. »