"The places I photograph are handmade; they are not virtual. It is important for me that these fictions, although artificial, are real. Even if it is an illusion, photography exalts these 'lived moments.'”
Didier Massard is a magician of invention within the genre of fabricated photographs. For twenty-five years he executed commercial work as a still photographer for clients in the world of fashion and cosmetics, photographing for labels including Chanel, Hermes, and many others. He launched his artistic career with the completion of his series Imaginary Journeys, a project that took him over ten years to complete. Now working exclusively on personal projects, he conceives of his works from the recesses of his imagination while drawing from our collective romantic and touristic notions of nationality and place. He has created many exotic locales within his studio, evoking the lands of Ireland, China, India, Holland, and the cliffs of Normandy. Massard works for long periods on each of these tableaux, and ruminates that "each image is the completion of an inner imaginary journey." Roberta Smith wrote in The New York Times that in Massard's work "color and space combine with fastidious detail to create a sense of illusion and artifice that is more usual to painting, Magic Realist painting in particular...one's willingness to suspend disbelief is a measure of Massard's skill."