When did you start taking photos?
I started in middle school, and I took a photography course to learn the techniques, like developing prints in a darkroom. Since then, I've never stopped.
Do you consider yourself more of an actor or a photographer?
Both! I was taking photos before I became an actor. I also do sculpture, in stone, metal, and wood. I've exhibited my work as both a photographer and a sculptor.
Are these two completely different things for you, or is there a link between your work as an actor and your work as a photographer?
There's always a connection between the two. In some of my photos, I'm on a film set. Others were taken on the way to the set. Sometimes I don't see the difference, and they blend together. But this was especially true when I shared an art gallery and workspace on Bowery Street in New York and was also an actor. We had the whole building: there were painters, sculptors, and others living there. We had a special effects and creature workshop in the basement, and we organized exhibitions to pay the rent.
You seem to have a certain taste for the underground, for the margins, but always with a certain form of melancholy… Why?
I suppose that's what naturally attracts me… Many people say they've seen beauty in macabre images through my photographs. I hadn't really realized that until someone pointed it out to me – and perhaps I wish they hadn't!
Your photographs speak of roads and journeys. Do you consider yourself a traveler?
Yes, I am obviously a traveler; I travel for work and outside of work. I live in New York, Costa Rica, and now Paris. I also host a travel show in which I travel the world by motorcycle (Ride with Norman Reedus(Editor's note). So yes, I accumulate a lot of miles aerial!
“NORMAN REEDUS – IN TRANSIT”
JOSEPH GALLERY
116, RUE DE TURENNE, PARIS 3RD
7 TO 17 NOVEMBER 2023
OPENING: NOVEMBER 9, 2023
