JOHN LONDONO

New Dawn Fades by Ralph Elawani

As an overview of the last ten years of the career of Montreal-based photographer John Londoño, the exhibition NEW DAWN FADES traces the artist’s singular interest in portraiture. It offers a range of intimate prints as well as images capturing personalities such as Beck, Xavier Dolan, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Grimes, and Vanessa Paradis.

Following in the footsteps of Anton Corbijn and Hedi Slimane, whose Rock Diary had a decisive influence on John Londoño's practice, NEW DAWN FADES captures the essence of this Venezuelan-born artist's work, whose aesthetic sensitivity and ease in moving between the underground and mainstream give his subjects a heightened incandescence.

Through this, grace intersects with charisma and the raw, unpolished purity of rough diamonds immortalized by Londoño. His photographs have made waves in Les Inrocks, Elle, NME and The Guardian.

If John Baldessari underscored the essential role of light in photography with this quip:“All these people on the images meet here because of it,” it could be said of John Londoño, conversely, that the encounter with light in his work is due to the incomparable aura he casts around each of these individuals.