For years, Jean-Claude Lussier has wandered down the alley’s, docks, campielli and palazzi of Venice during the time of the Carnival. Behind the painted faces and costumes of the Venice Carnival, he searches for the soul of this event, brought to life by those who themselves bring life to this fabled event.
His images, often theatrical and trombling, pose more questions than answers, and bring to mind echoes of Fellini, Casanova and Valmont, the Marquis de Sade and Don Giovanni. The dark waters of the canals add to the mood created by costume, misty light and the omnipresent Venitian architecture.

Lussier’s photographs strive to express the passion, hope and desires that the participants of the Carnival create with their elaborate and often extremely ornate costumes. The characters they create, and wich Lussier has exploited with his camera, would befit a poem by Cocteau and evoke the music and voice of the sublime castrato, Farinelli.

These mythical images by Jean-Claude Lussier would appear to have been created to please Dominique Fernandez, the author of Porporino, and would have bring a smile to Roland Barthes, as they too express a love, a love of the Carnival.