Infinity Pool
Christopher Barraja’s De chlore et de rosé
The French Riviera is a landscape long colonized by the lens, a geography defined by the relentless glare of the Mediterranean sun and the archetypal promise of leisure. Yet, in De chlore et de rosé, Christopher Barraja peels back the veneer of this postcard-perfect reality, presenting instead a series of fever dreams—a visceral, fragmented, and deeply intoxicating meditation on the passage of time, desire, and the stifling weight of a paradise that feels increasingly fragile. The series operates in a state of suspended animation, where the boundaries between the physical body and the surrounding environment—the water, the concrete, the flora—begin to blur and dissolve. Through his lens, the Riviera ceases to be a destination and becomes a psychological state. The images vibrate with a sensory overload that feels like the tail end of a heat-drenched afternoon: everything is saturated, sticky, and dangerously beautiful.
At the core of the series is a profound focus on the body as both landscape and enigma. Barraja does not offer us the body in its entirety; he presents it in fragments—a curve of a back, the texture of skin beaded with moisture, the line of a shoulder. By isolating these details, he elevates the human form to the level of the sculptural, drawing compelling analogies between the anatomy of a man, the organic curves of a shell, and the intricate unfolding of a petal. This reliance on formal parallels creates a rhythmic flow across the collection. There is a democratic sensuality at play here: the softness of skin is indistinguishable from the tactile qualities of the natural world. Yet, this sensuality is frequently disrupted. Faces are often obscured, blurred, or cast into shadow, turning individuals into archetypes of desire. We are not looking at specific people so much as we are observing the manifestation of longing itself. These figures are, at times, like mirages—appearing suddenly in the glare, only to melt back into the shimmering, blue abyss
There is a deliberate, unsettling tension between the overt romance of the imagery and the underlying sense of unease. Barraja masterfully highlights the paradox of the "endless holiday." While the images breathe with an aesthetic of carefree ease, there is a recurring industrial coldness—the sharp, metallic lines of a private jet against a blue sky, the harshness of barbed wire, the sterile geometry of pool tiles. The title itself, De chlore et de rosé (Of Chlorine and Rosé), acts as a manifesto for this collision of worlds. Chlorine is the chemical, manufactured scent of human-controlled leisure; rosé is the libation of the epicurean summer. Together, they suggest a reality that is synthesized, a stage set for a performance of happiness. As the artist notes, these are images of "intoxication," where the viewer’s gaze sways between the voyeuristic pleasure of observation and the obsessive need to possess or understand what is being viewed.
Christopher Barraja’s De chlore et de rosé operates in the liminal space between reality and dreamlike vision, capturing the fragmented yet hauntingly sharp nature of memory. Through his lens, water serves as both a sanctuary and a site of suffocation, while the interplay of body, landscape, and industrial artifice constructs a portrait of the Riviera that is as disillusioned as it is profoundly beautiful. The series functions as a collective projection for a generation seeking escape, transforming sun-drenched horizons into mirrors of longing. Ultimately, it is an invitation to witness a world that feels both intoxicating and ephemeral—a suspended, fragile reality holding its breath in the quiet, tense anticipation of an impending, inevitable shift.
