Christophe Canato's rich photographs of darkly lit portraits and still life trigger memories of one's childhood.

In this emotional space between affection and fascination, animals are featured and mimed.

Each evocative piece brimming with a sense of mystery delves into the psyche of childhood and looks at the imagination held only within the mind of the child.

In reference to wildness and nature, the series of haunting photographs and videos in Ricochet will bring us back to our instincts and memories.

"It is not just that the boyhood imagination is inventive, it is also collective. Ideas are shared, actions mimicked, styles adopted and tales believed. The period before puberty is one in which we first discern the expectations the world has of us. Having left the close embrace of the maternal to explore the nature of being an individual, the child discovers demands are being made, ambitions set… There is tension between a desire to conform and the urge to discover what might be possible."
- Alasdair Foster, Cultural Development Consulting

French-Australian visual artist Christophe Canato has been living and working in Perth, Western Australia since 2005. After receiving his DNSEP in 1989 (comparable to a Master in Fine Arts) and a Diploma of Fashion from the prestigious Institut Français de la Mode (French Fashion Institute) in 1993, Canato has continued to draw on his background in the Paris Fashion industry.

Relationship to Art and the Animal

My work looks at interpretations of links amongst the social, cultural and material.

Ecology, consumption and feminism are some of my pet subjects. In most of my photographic series, the fauna is represented in all its forms.

Looking back on our childhood musings and play, I aim to investigate memory as well as our attachment to the natural environment, our collected objects and their memory.

Ricochet references the wild world where boys wear horns and skins of beast on their heads, or put an orange in the mouth to imitate the monkey.