Gabrielle Coué

Balancing experimental protocols with intuition, Gabrielle Coué explores what materials reveal when put to the test. By transforming everyday objects through light and texture, she creates images that shift our perception and reinvent the way we see the ordinary.

What role does material play in your creative process?
Material is at the heart of my creative process. It guides my choices, shapes my experiments and ultimately determines the final outcome. Through its specific properties and transformative potential, each material becomes an active component of the composition.

To better organize my experiments, I am currently developing a material library. Its main purpose is to document the characteristics of each material—whether raw, transformed or combined—both before and after its transformation. This approach allows me to deepen my understanding ofeach material’s properties and their potential applications. The material library also serves as a precise record of every experiment, helping me anticipate the possibilities each material

What draws you to everyday objects?
Everyday objects have always been there, sitting on the same shelves and tucked away in the same drawers. We no longer notice them—they have become invisible. We look at them carefully once, then less and less over time. We never allow them to be anything other than useful. Functional. They are constantly handled, used and consumed without ever truly being seen, manipulated through the same almost unconscious gestures.

Through photography, I enlarge them, isolate them and illuminate them differently, making them monumental and powerful. I give them space—objects that have never been at the center of attention. I personify them in order to make them visible. •

photos : Serie 03 • Serie 04 • Serie 02 • © Gabrielle Coué