Lumière: Matthieu Ricard's photo exhibition at Galerie Françoise Livinec

What if light could tell the story of a lifetime? From October 10 to November 15, 2025, Galerie Françoise Livinec will be hosting a brand-new exhibition dedicated to Matthieu Ricard, to coincide with the release of his book Lumière by Éditions Allary. In all, over sixty photographs, some never before seen, retrace more than half a century of contemplation around the world, from Himalayan summits to moments of grace and spiritual portraits. This is the first time the gallery has opened its walls to photography, and the first gallery exhibition by the monk-photographer, whose profits from sales will be donated in full to his humanitarian association Karuna-Shechen.

This is a turning point in the gallery's programming, which usually questions the boundaries between abstraction and figuration. With this exhibition, it opens up to a different kind of dialogue: that between the infinitely large and the infinitely small, between the observation of nature and the inner quest. Each photograph becomes a medium for meditation, a bridge between sensory perception and spiritual wisdom.

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An exhibition like a breath in the tumult of the world

If you've always been looking for a moment of visual peace, a place to slow down and see differently, this exhibition might just be the stopover you've been waiting for. In an uncluttered, hushed space, the photographs envelop you in subtle reflections, fleeting shadows, Tibetan faces and Himalayan peaks. Each shot, taken "on the fly" in a moment of grace, is the fruit of years of silence, slowness and a life turned inward.

Theexhibition takes you on a photographic and meditative journey, from the rivers of Bhutan to the imperceptible details of a tree trunk or insect wing. These images, sometimes intimate, sometimes panoramic, resonate with Buddhist philosophy: they abolish the boundary between infinitely large and infinitely small, between exterior and interior.

Light and color as the language of the soul

Through his photographs, Matthieu Ricard works with light as others paint canvases. It becomes matter, energy, a vibrant presence. The colors, inspired by Buddhist symbolism, dialogue with the elements and emotions: red for discernment, blue for space, yellow for the earth and green for action. These hues are never gratuitous: they express a form of wisdom, an understanding of the world through the light filtered by consciousness.

Matthieu Ricard doesn't photograph to represent, but to reveal. He captures the fractal forms that nature reproduces on every scale: the branches of a tree recall the deltas of a river, the wrinkles of a face evoke the folds of a glacier. Each photo is a visual mandala, a cartography of the universe as seen by a man who has spent fifty years observing in silence.

An encounter between art, spirituality and commitment

This photographic project is rooted in an extraordinary trajectory: that of a man born into a French intellectual family, who became a Tibetan monk, translator of the Dalai Lama and author of 25 books. His images, already exhibited at the Rencontres d'Arles, the Rubin Museum in New York and the Good Planet Foundation, find a new setting in Paris, in a gallery renowned for its willingness to challenge aesthetic boundaries.

When you visit this exhibition, you enter into a sensory and spiritual experience, ideal for a solo outing, an introspective stroll, or a moment to share as a duo. The peaceful, luminous setting lends itself to both contemplation and artistic discovery. What if light wasn't just what you saw, but what you felt?

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