Pierre Claude - Lighting With Less
During the course of interviewing preeminent lighting designers for this column, we often inquire about their favorite colors. Their responses cover a rainbow of hues. But when we posed the question to this award winning French designer, he gave a delightfully surprising answer - "white!"
Often not even regarded as a color (it is, after all achromatic, having no chroma), white is typically taken for granted, a backdrop to the "real" action. But its low profile is a bit deceiving, given that all visible light wavelengths are reflected in white.
In this respect, white serves as the perfect metaphor for Claude’s minimalistic approach to lighting design. Shorn of all unnecessary frills and accompaniments, his designs might seem rather simple at first - that is until you actually see them and experience their power to move emotions.
His minimalistic designs' artfully inspired use of darkness, shadows, silhouettes, blinders and light angles endows the stage with a strong, evocative aura. Wielded with great subtlety his designs create surprises at every turn. At one moment, he might he might caress the performer on stage with soft silhouettes, only the have that artist engulfed in bright backlight the next moment, before floating on a sea of uplighting after that.