Some of the beech trees in Champagne, the faux de verzy beeches, look as if someone twisted them on purpose. French photographer Philippe Jarrigeon has made them the leading figures of his newest series.
Le Vrai du Faux focuses on the Faux de Verzy, contorted beeches found in the Montagne de Reims. Their trunks and branches bend into shapes that seem hard to explain by natural growth alone. Jarrigeon photographs them as characters rather than scenery.
The project will appear in the Émergence section of Paris Photo at the Grand Palais from November 12 to 15, 2026. It also earned Jarrigeon the eighth Prix Maison Ruinart. The prize, created in 2018, selects an emerging photographer each year and backs a new project in any technique.
Jarrigeon’s work sits within a longer French photographic tradition, and France’s 200-year visual journey through photography traces how that medium developed. It offers useful context for his Paris Photo presentation.
From fashion to fantasy
Jarrigeon has worked for nearly two decades across editorial commissions, commercial jobs and personal projects. He graduated from the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) in 2006 and has taught there since 2008, according to the prize announcement.
His images borrow the polish of fashion campaigns and the saturated color of 1980s and 1990s pop culture. Humor and odd details interrupt that polish, giving the work the feel of surreal nature photography. He rarely quotes those references straight, and the scenes feel slightly off.
A forest as a stage
Rocher Fatal, his second book, was published by RVB Books with a text by Laura Vazquez. It records two years of work in the Forest of Fontainebleau. Jarrigeon treated the woods as a setting for a run of curious episodes.
Crumbling castles and shuttered quarries share the frames with walkers, deer and a knight who has fallen. A smiling flower and an ordinary-looking rock also turn up. Artists Nina Childress, Théo Mercier, Vimala Pons, Laura Vazquez and Rebeka Warrior appear as well.
The photographs carry a cinematic air, but the humor keeps them from becoming solemn. The forest looks both familiar and theatrical, and its trees and inhabitants read as parts of one story. Fires have since burned sections of the forest, so the book now records a place that has changed.
Imagining other kinds of life among faux de verzy beeches
In Champagne, Jarrigeon extends the same method. Geological history and living forms become raw material for a project about projection and memory. The contorted beech trees anchor the series, and the other images build around them.
Shells recall a sea that once covered the region. They sit beside bouquets, glowing forms and ambiguous figures. Images titled The Harvest, Poppy and The Surprise show familiar plants taking on strange qualities through composition and staging.
Animals and people share these scenes without a clear hierarchy. Objects look as though they grew from the ground, like these trees and other plants around them. The viewer is left unsure who is watching and who is being watched.
The staged, story-driven feel of this series has parallels in Ronald Jackson’s enigmatic portraits imagining unseen screenplays, which also invite viewers to guess at the narrative behind each frame.
Jarrigeon explains the intent in his own words. “With Le Vrai du Faux, nature is never treated as a mere backdrop; it becomes a source of inspiration and a space for imagination. My experience of Champagne has shaped a vision of landscapes inhabited by presences, spirits, remnants of the past, and fictions,” he says.
A solo show, Rocher Fatal, runs at WOMANRAY at 18–19 Passage Molière, 75003 Paris, from November 6 through December 24, 2026. Visitors can see the Forest of Fontainebleau work there before the Paris Photo presentation opens. The series sits within the posthuman coverage that INDX|GLOBAL supports, which asks what changes when people are no longer the measure of all things.
Via designboom.com
Frequently asked questions
Where are the faux de Verzy beeches located?
The faux de Verzy beeches are contorted trees found in the Montagne de Reims, in Champagne. Their trunks and branches bend into shapes that seem hard to explain by natural growth alone.
When can Le Vrai du Faux be seen at Paris Photo?
Jarrigeon’s Le Vrai du Faux appears in the Émergence section of Paris Photo at the Grand Palais from November 12 to 15, 2026. The series focuses on the faux de Verzy beeches.
What is the Prix Maison Ruinart awarded for?
The Prix Maison Ruinart, created in 2018, selects an emerging photographer each year and backs a new project in any technique. Jarrigeon earned the eighth edition of the prize for Le Vrai du Faux.
Where and when can Rocher Fatal be seen in Paris?
Rocher Fatal, Jarrigeon’s solo show of work from the Forest of Fontainebleau, runs at WOMANRAY at 18–19 Passage Molière, 75003 Paris. It is on view from November 6 through December 24, 2026.
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