For as long as I remember, I always felt fascinated by photography.

In 1974 I began studying photographic techniques at the Fine Arts Section of the École des Arts et Métiers in Luxembourg.

During a year and a half I got familiar with the field of photography at a photographic studio, before resuming my studies at the Fine Arts Section of the École des Arts et Métiers, which I graduated in 1977. Thus, in 2014, I became an independent photographer and a freelance graphic designer.

For more than three decades I had a successful career as a graphic designer and art director, as a freelance and at various communication agencies, yet I never abandoned my early passion.

Since 2015, I am exhibiting my impressions from Belgium, Bulgaria, Crete, Croatia, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, North Macedonia, Portugal, Scotland, Serbia, Spain, Turkey and Wales.

 

Pepe Pax

April 2024

 

 

 

The Photographer with an empathetic eye
By Maurice Sherif; December 2020

 

What better way to improve your own work than to be inspired by Pepe photographs? I am absolutely convinced that discovering his portfolios helped me educate my eye and developed a better understanding of the possibilities that photography offers.

 

Contemplating his amazing photographs, in addition to being a pleasure, is an incredibly good way to develop anyone "photographic eye". He knows how to read and write visually; his new vision of contemporary photographic culture reveals the stunning intricacies and complex beauty of his works. He can see the potential for a strong photograph and then organize the graphic elements into an effective, compelling composition has always been one of his key skills in making photographs.

 

Pepe is a keen social documentarian of life as he discovered it around him, and with the benefit of hindsight, his archive now serves as an invaluable historical resource. He has documented a lot of places that no longer exists. I think there is also this sense that he has captured, and sort of plotted for us in time, these moments and these ways of life that no longer exist.

 

Pepe's technical skill is to be admired – his crisp, clear shots are well constructed compositions that give a transparency to all manner of difficult subjects – but it is the warmth and rapport with which Pepe approaches his subjects which most resonates throughout his oeuvre. He has a non-judgemental eye, and I think that is relatively rare within social documentary photography.

 

Pepe is prolific photographer, and there is an incredibly large body of work, so what I have tried to do is show all the different areas of his work within the context of the MFA program at the University of Colorado – and a lot of the slightly lesser-known works as well. What is more, the time lapsed a new emphasis on the timelessness of his work, while the change in context shifts its meaning. What should "art photography" look like? These same questions continue to provoke discussion and argument even today. Photography is still defining itself.

 

Pepe uses his creative thinking for better photographs. His work is reductive, stripped to essentials more objective than subjective anti-pictorial geometric abstraction. He has the potential for very graphic, even abstract imagery. He continues taking photographs that express an area's people, cultures, customs, landscape, and history.

 

 

   Awards, Honorable Mentions & Exhibitions

  • 2019    12th Pollux Awards, Pro Section, Barcelona, Spain, May 2018,
                 Category Documentary & Reportage (Single images), Winner
                 Category Documentary & Reportage (Single images), 14 Honorable mentions
  • 2019    14th Pollux Awards, Pro Section, Barcelona, Spain, May 2020,
                 Category Documentary & Reportage (Single images), Winner
                 Category Documentary & Reportage (Single images), 10 Honorable mentions
  • 2020    15th Pollux Awards, Pro Section, Barcelona, Spain, September 2020,
                 Category Documentary & Reportage (Single images), Winner
                 Category Documentary & Reportage (Single images), 10 Honorable mentions
                 Category Documentary & Reportage (Series), 6 Honorable mentions
  • 2021    16th Pollux Awards, Pro Section, Barcelona, Spain, June 2021,
                 Category Abstract through Black & White (Single images), Winner
                 Category Abstract through Black & White (Single images), 7 Honorable mentions
                 Category People (Series), 9 Honorable mentions
                 Category Portrait (Series), 6 Honorable mentions
  • 2022    17th Pollux Awards, Pro Section, Barcelona, Spain, January 2022,
                 Documentary & Reportage (Single images), 3 Winner (1st/2nd/3rd)
                 Documentary & Reportage (Single images), 2 Honorable Mentions
                 Documentary & Reportage (Series), 5 Honorable Mentions
                 Nature (Single images), 4 Winner (3rd)
  • Solo exhibitions
  • 2014    Horizons at the Restaurant Casa Fabiana; Luxembourg, September 2014 - February 2015
  • 2015    En long et en large at the Domaine Thermal de Mondorf; Luxembourg, September - October 2015
  • 2016    En long et en large at the ZithaKlink; Luxembourg, April - May 2015
  • 2016    ∞ at the Restaurant Casa Fabiana; Luxembourg, September - November 2016
  • 2017    CLINs at the Hôpital Kirchberg; Luxembourg, October - December 2017
  • 2019    Aspectus & Prospectus at the Restaurant Casa Fabiana; Luxembourg, December 2019 - February 2020
  • 2023    At the Galerie Netzwerk in Trier; March – April; 2023

    Dual exhibitions
  • 2016    SHINING with Ben Goerens at the Galerie Schlassgoart; Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, February - March 2016
  • 2016    Postliminium with Sylvie Reusch; Holzem, Luxembourg, June 2016
  • 2018    Paradoxos with Ben Goerens at the Banque Fortuna; Luxembourg, May - June 2018
  • 2021    At the Valentiny Foundation with Sculptor Raymond Petit July - August 2021
  • 2022    At the ViArt Art Gallery in Vianden with Verena Mayer-Tasch; Luxembourg, April - May 2022

    Group exhibitions
  • 2015    ARTlaFERME; Eppeldorf, Luxembourg, December 2015
  • 2016    11. Uluslararasi Sanat Çaliştayi by Artclan; Ayvalik-Cunda, Turkey
  • 2016    Veianener KonschTour, Vianden, Luxembourg, May 2016
  • 2017    ReNaissance (ARC), Roeser, Luxembourg, March - April 2017
  • 2017    L’Art-Rochette at the Larochette Castle; Larochette, Luxembourg, September 2017
  • 2018    Mimikry Mimesis, Diekirch, Luxembourg, December 2018
  • 2018    5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography (5th Barcelona Foto Biennale), Spain, October 2018
  • 2019    12th Pollux Awards, Pro Section, Barcelona, Spain, May 2018
  • 2019    14th Pollux Awards, Pro Section, Barcelona, Spain, May 2020
  • 2019    5th International Salon Print and Digital Art Photography; Varna, Bulgaria 2019
  • 2020    15th Pollux Awards, Pro Section, Barcelona, Spain, September 2020
  • 2020    Bâtiment 4, Cueva, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
  • 2021    16th Pollux Awards, Pro Section, Barcelona, Spain, June 2021
  • 2022    17th Pollux Awards, Pro Section, Barcelona, Spain, January 2022
  • 2024    Ausstellung 3 Welten, At the Galerie Netzwerk in Trier; March – April; 2024

    Publications
  • 2020    FotoNostrum Magazine; FotoNostrum, Mediterranean House of Photography