Valérie Belin’s large-scale black and white photographs of banal items are coldly beautiful, confrontational and achieve an unsettling balance of being both abstract and representational. We have exhibited two series of work, Palettes (2005) and Chips (2004); vastly different in subject but joined by Belin’s signature style: black and white photographs which have the precision of a pen and ink drawing, combined with a simple black background depriving the subject of context. This was Belin’s first solo exhibition in the UK.

Palettes are photographs of the carcasses of computers, screens, photocopiers and other electronic equipment that have outlived their usefulness. Photographed on site at a factory that classifies electrical equipment for recycling, the objects on the pallets are not artistically arranged but photographed exactly how the workers stacked them, obeying simple rules of equipment classification and gravity. In Chips, humble British crisp packets are transformed into icons of mass consumption. The graphic potency of these monumental photographs is achieved through enlargement, the suppression of the garish colour associated with the packaging, and the flattening of surfaces. Echoing Warhol’s explorations into the mass produced, Belin works with objects deemed familiar and without quality, breathing an almost alchemical transformation into the familiar crisp packet, an item that has the air of the ‘exotic’ to the French artist.

Valerie Belin's work will be on show at the Maison Europeennee de la Photographie, Ville de Paris, from April 9 to June 8, 2008. www.mep-fr.org