ONE BLOOD [Signed]

Introducing ONE BLOOD, an artist book by Frank Lebon, published by Little Big Man Books and offset printed in Japan. ONE BLOOD is the first solo artist book by photographer Frank Lebon. Borne out of loosely applied yet technically defined approaches to portraiture, ONE BLOOD showcases multiple photographic series taken between 2020 and 2023. The practice of photographing loved ones, familiar territory for Frank Lebon, is taken to its extreme both in process and form. In the dark times of 2020, Frank conceived of a project that had him seeking out family and friends to prick their fingers and collect samples of their blood. These intimate sessions to retrieve blood droplets that would be smeared on small glass slides were paired with slightly more traditional portraits, for which Frank would ask his subjects (blood donors) to place their hands over his flash, casting a unique flood of red light upon their own faces. “The spark that ignited the idea was originally the spark of a flash, my fingers pressed up against it, the light would shine through my finger and project the red of my blood upon my subject. As with almost anything noteworthy I have ever created, it was birthed from a mistake; my fingers found themselves there as they had nowhere else to go.” In ONE BLOOD Frank Lebon searches across scales and through layers for photographic evidence of unity and similitude across the people in his family, his life, and his city, London. From his blood, to his blood relatives, to the working bodies that transport blood of donors to those in need, Lebon extends his practice beyond the instrument of the camera to capture an idea of life-blood. Finger prickers, microscopes, slides, flash, and an unexpected diabetes diagnosis transform his own relationship to biological processes he had previously taken for granted. In addition to the beautiful photographic series showcased in 4-color offset printing and special glosses, an essay by Laura Serejo Genes places Lebon in half-step with French Surrealist photographer Jacques-André Boiffard. Boiffard, on a decade-long hiatus from the world of medicine, produced some of the most iconic images of the Surrealism movement. Like Lebon, Boiffard used the technical craft of photography to frame the world so that it finally appears as uncanny as it feels from the inside. ONE BLOOD begins from this premise, following Lebon as he collects, processes, and reconfigures the proof that blood runs through it all.