Explorations
Solo Exhibition by Cyril Delettre
5 May - 6 June 2021
La Galerie is pleased to present a solo exhibition by French photographer Cyril Delettre featuring his latest series of work Walk Don’t Walk and Wild City. Living and working in Hong Kong for the past 7 years, Cyril captures the unique, mixed spirit of the city. His work explores the city’s contrasting rhythms, where slowness meets speed, and the past meets the present.
Walk Don’t Walk #9, 2020
Walk Don’t Walk #27, 2020
Walk Don’t Walk
I caught people lost in their thoughts at the crosswalk.
Stripped of any representation of themselves, they simply wait. I observe them as if they were on stage, each one carrying a thousand stories.
Time is suspended, it is an irreducible wait.
They are almost motionless. Between them and my lens, the flow of trams and buses creates a veil.
I try to contrast the speed of the city to the suspended time of the individuals, stopped in their tracks for this short moment.
For me, this is a symbolic image of Hong Kong, where the times overlap.
– Cyril Delettre
Walk Don’t Walk #14, 2020
Wild City #8
2021, Inkjet print on fine art paper, 95 x 109 cm
Wild City
My photographic walks in Hong Kong have led me to play with the streets. I have invited the ink paintings of Grand So, a street artist on Hollywood Road whom I meet daily, into my photographs. I wanted to animate the walls captured in my photographs with his animals on recycled paper, mixing contemporary Western architecture with traditional Chinese animals, concrete with paper, urban pollution with recycled materials, my gaze in motion with his timeless work.
It is a game on the mixing of times, places, and cultures; it is an image of the richness of the encounter.
– Cyril Delettre
All artworks in Wild City are unique pieces.
Wild City #3
2021, Inkjet print on fine art paper, 46 x 70 cm
Wild City #2
2021, Inkjet print on fine art paper, 43 x 65 cm
Artist Insights
Learn more about the inspiration and creative thoughts behind Cyril Delettre's latest works in our interviews with the artist himself, at his studio just before the opening of his solo exhibition with La Galerie.
Explore more of Cyril Delettre's works in our virtual exhibition:
About the Artist
Cyril Delettre is a French artist specialising in photography and videography. His work is a balance between documentary and art.
Hong Kong has inspired him the following series: How To See The Light…Walk the dog, Eclosions HK, After Midnight, Afternoon, Rythmes, Walk Don’t Walk, and Wild City.