Poitevin’s photographs do not aspire to narrate or to document. They possess a monumentality through the scale of the work and a temporality, while at the same time breathing silence. Light plays hereby an important role. Poitevin isolates the subjects in his photographs by which said subjects become autonomous. At times, light is even the actual subject of his photographs. Light, format, paper, and framing are very important for Poitevin. These components must respond to the intensity and the fragility of each subject represented in the photographs.​

There is a lack of human presence in Poitevin’s photographs. The different subjects in his photographs, such as landscapes, skulls, flowers, and animals, are subjects which are experienced from day to day; those things which we ignore in our daily lives as commonplace and invisible, now brought to the fore and finally seen. Therefore, his photographs contain memories and associations which remain in the mind, but they are also open to the interpretation of the viewer who can project his or her own memories and associations onto the photographs.

Eric Poitevin (b. 1961, Languyon, France) lives and works in Mangiennes. He receivedhis degree in plastic arts at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Metz in 1985. He currently has a solo exhibition at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. Poitevin presented his work in other solo exhibitions at Galerie Albert Baronian, Brussels (2018), FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand (2015), Villa Medici, Rome (2011) and L’image nue, Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi (BE). Recent group exhibitions including his works are Passion. Bilder von der Jagd, Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur (2019), Visible/Invisible, Chateau de Versailles (2019), Invention d’un monde: Photographies des collections Robelin, FRAC Auvergne (2019), Jardins, Grand Palais, Paris (2017), Beauty and the Beast: The Animal in Photography, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego (2016) and Dans la Forêt, FRAC Aquitaine, Bordeaux (2010).​

The photographs of Poitevin are included in numerous public and private collections such as Centre Pompidou, Paris; MAMCS, Strasbourg; MAMCO, Genève; and Fonds Cantonal d’Art Contemporain de la ville de Genève. Eric Poitevin received the Grand Prix National des Arts Plastiques in 1990 and he was nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2003.