Portrait
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According to Suzy Menkes from the International Herald Tribune, “Thierry Dreyfus is the man who is making the City of Light live up to its name. The designer is the master of the soft glow, bright beams and laser lines. Dreyfus may be an artist with light, but he is too modest to give himself that title or to compare himself with conceptual neon experimenters of the 1980s and with the light installations of the American artist James Turrell”.
Yet, the illumination of the reopening of the Grand Palais (2005) spoke for itself, ranging like a rainbow through a series of luminous emotions. “I had to make people dream”, he adds. And he did bedazzle over 500 000 visitors.
Art director and artist since 1985, Thierry Dreyfus has creating unique and memorable atmospheres for the fashion industry. Co-produced exclusively with Eyesight – a Paris-based company – he has expanded the boundaries of runway modernity through custom design light-scenography. Over the years, shows have ranged from Dior Homme, Helmut Lang, Calvin Klein, Ann Demeulemeester, Sonia Rykiel, Chloé, Marni and Jil Sander to Yves Saint Laurent’s retrospective “Haute couture” show.
Whatever the industry or the nature of the commission, Thierry Dreyfus tells stories with light. He turns this intangible skin into a form of inspiration and desire, a vibrant body that becomes a mirror onto which you can project yourself, a volume, a space on in its own right.
Each of his installations is conceived to create a specific perception of the place and its environment. He sets up interactive playgrounds where light becomes a medium for dialogue between the architecture and the viewer. Thierry Dreyfus envisions fields of experience or visual landmarks as guides to drive and enlighten one’s vision.
Thierry Dreyfus got his first taste of lighting in theater and Opera, and since gone on to develop his own artistic mise en scène : after designing light installations for the 2000 Lyon Biennale and working on a commission for the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, he lit up the Grand Palais for its reopening (2005). In 2006, he imagined lights of fire in the water basins of the Château de Versailles, then staged an 80m high Ladder at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France for La Nuit Blanche, before he was commissioned by Starwood to imagine specific and contextual light installations for the façades of Le Méridien in Shanghai and San Francisco. In Shanghai, a red beam, a clear symbol of power on the rooftop, vibrated like a beating heart while in San Francisco, colourful panels and filters were applied onto the windows to give another dimension to the city from within the rooms, and to make the façade at night, live on an organic rhythm at night.
In addition, Thierry Dreyfus creates lamps or what he calls “elements of light”, some of which were shown at the Palais de Tokyo in 2003 and soon became collectors’ items. Although his Paris studio is filled with high-tech light, one discovers a prototype of a crystalline lamp filled with sea salt, or modernist tungsten grid creations made in a limited edition of eight and sold privately. Yet, new experiments are always at stake since he’s constantly conducting tests with light much as others paint or sculpt. He is currently working on the manufacture some of his prototypes.
Photographer, he feels the need to record light moods because he is convinced that "Light doesn’t have words. It does not speak intellectually. It is about emotion”. Today, he’s compiling images for a portfolio entitled “photography of light”. It would seem that Thierry Dreyfus’s art is emerging from the shadows and into the spotlight.
Yet, the illumination of the reopening of the Grand Palais (2005) spoke for itself, ranging like a rainbow through a series of luminous emotions. “I had to make people dream”, he adds. And he did bedazzle over 500 000 visitors.
Art director and artist since 1985, Thierry Dreyfus has creating unique and memorable atmospheres for the fashion industry. Co-produced exclusively with Eyesight – a Paris-based company – he has expanded the boundaries of runway modernity through custom design light-scenography. Over the years, shows have ranged from Dior Homme, Helmut Lang, Calvin Klein, Ann Demeulemeester, Sonia Rykiel, Chloé, Marni and Jil Sander to Yves Saint Laurent’s retrospective “Haute couture” show.
Whatever the industry or the nature of the commission, Thierry Dreyfus tells stories with light. He turns this intangible skin into a form of inspiration and desire, a vibrant body that becomes a mirror onto which you can project yourself, a volume, a space on in its own right.
Each of his installations is conceived to create a specific perception of the place and its environment. He sets up interactive playgrounds where light becomes a medium for dialogue between the architecture and the viewer. Thierry Dreyfus envisions fields of experience or visual landmarks as guides to drive and enlighten one’s vision.
Thierry Dreyfus got his first taste of lighting in theater and Opera, and since gone on to develop his own artistic mise en scène : after designing light installations for the 2000 Lyon Biennale and working on a commission for the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, he lit up the Grand Palais for its reopening (2005). In 2006, he imagined lights of fire in the water basins of the Château de Versailles, then staged an 80m high Ladder at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France for La Nuit Blanche, before he was commissioned by Starwood to imagine specific and contextual light installations for the façades of Le Méridien in Shanghai and San Francisco. In Shanghai, a red beam, a clear symbol of power on the rooftop, vibrated like a beating heart while in San Francisco, colourful panels and filters were applied onto the windows to give another dimension to the city from within the rooms, and to make the façade at night, live on an organic rhythm at night.
In addition, Thierry Dreyfus creates lamps or what he calls “elements of light”, some of which were shown at the Palais de Tokyo in 2003 and soon became collectors’ items. Although his Paris studio is filled with high-tech light, one discovers a prototype of a crystalline lamp filled with sea salt, or modernist tungsten grid creations made in a limited edition of eight and sold privately. Yet, new experiments are always at stake since he’s constantly conducting tests with light much as others paint or sculpt. He is currently working on the manufacture some of his prototypes.
Photographer, he feels the need to record light moods because he is convinced that "Light doesn’t have words. It does not speak intellectually. It is about emotion”. Today, he’s compiling images for a portfolio entitled “photography of light”. It would seem that Thierry Dreyfus’s art is emerging from the shadows and into the spotlight.