Foreword!

 

Dear readers, prior to the interview with Terry Hi, I wanted to express my amazement at the extent of his talent and the emotions generated by his creations. We are proud and happy to present an artist whose creativity, modernity, humanity and poetry continue to surprise us. 

 

Stéphane Theri

For readers who don’t know you yet, who are you Terry?

What makes you get up every morning and why?

I'm Terry, digital artist and fine art photographer, passionate about beauty in all its forms. My artistic journey began in earnest in 2022 with photography, before evolving rapidly into digital creation in 2023. I love transforming my most beautiful photos into unique works of art, blending my intuition and imagination to offer a different artistic vision.
What gets me up every morning is this deep desire to create, to share positive emotions and to put a smile on people's faces through my art. The beauty I see in women, nature, animals and everything around me is an inexhaustible source of inspiration. My aim is to contribute to a little more joy and well-being in this world, by transforming simple moments into creations full of sensitivity and poetry.

What words best define your artistic work?

The words that best define my artistic work are beauty, sensitivity, positivity, freedom and imagination. My art celebrates beauty in all its forms, with the intention of conveying positive emotions, while leaving plenty of room for creativity and adaptation to individual desires.

Your graphic creations arouse strong emotions and seem to open up a field of possibilities in which you mix color and poetry. What are your sources of inspiration? What are you expressing?

What do you want to share? What is your favorite medium?

My main sources of inspiration are women, nature and animals, but more broadly everything that I find beautiful around me. These elements inspire me because they embody life, emotion and a form of harmony that touches me deeply.
Through my creations, I express a quest for beauty and positivity. I seek to convey emotions that warm the heart, stimulate the imagination and bring joy. What I want to share above all is a moment of well-being, an enchanted interlude where you can let yourself be carried away by the colors, poetry and sensitivity of my works.
As far as the medium is concerned, I work mainly with digital creations based on my photographs. This medium allows me to push back the limits of my creativity while bringing unique works to life. However, seeing my creations printed on quality supports - canvas, art paper or everyday objects - is always a great satisfaction, as it gives them a particular materiality that amplifies their impact.

Is digital art a tool of artistic expression more striking than photography or a simple different creation process? What makes you move from one to the other?

For me, digital art is neither superior nor inferior to photography; it's a complementary tool that offers infinite possibilities of expression. Photography captures a precise moment, a raw emotion, often with a certain spontaneity. Digital art, on the other hand, allows me to reinterpret that moment, to transform it and add layers of sensitivity and imagination that go beyond the real.
What drives me from one to the other is above all a question of desire and intuition. Sometimes a photo alone is enough to tell a story, but other times it becomes the starting point for a more elaborate work. Digital art then allows me to extend this story, explore new dimensions and share a more personal and poetic vision.
In short, photography and digital art are two facets of the same quest: to celebrate beauty and evoke emotions. Together, they give me the freedom to express myself fully and create without limits.

Photography seems to hold a preponderant place in your artistic approach.

What topics are of most interest to you and your goal?

What are you looking for when you “shoot” a portrait.

What will close a portrait photo session?

Photography is essential to my artistic approach. It is often the starting point for my creations. What fascinates me most are portraits and nature scenes. In a portrait, what interests me is the story the face tells, the emotions it transmits, and the ability of a person to reveal something profound through his or her gaze, expression or posture.
When I “shoot” a portrait, I seek above all to capture the essence of the person, what makes him or her unique. My aim is to bring out their inner and outer beauty, while creating an atmosphere where they can feel comfortable and authentic. I also like to play with light and shadow to sublimate details and enhance the poetry of the image.
A portrait photo session often ends when I feel that the magic moment has been captured, when the emotion is at its most sincere and intense. It's a moment when I feel a certain harmony between the person, the lens and myself. I also sometimes end a session by chatting with the person photographed, to exchange our impressions and share a human moment that remains, in my eyes, as important as the artistic creation itself.

In your opinion, is a portrait an exposure?

Please justify your answer.

Yes, a portrait can be a form of exposure, but obviously not in the literal sense. It's an emotional or inner exposure. When someone poses for a portrait, they reveal themselves in a certain way. He exposes a fragment of his soul, his emotions, or even his vulnerabilities. My role as a photographer is to capture this authenticity, this moment when the person stops “posing” to show themselves as they really are.
Having said that, I believe that a portrait is also a dialogue between the person photographed and myself. It's a process of mutual trust. I don't try to force people to reveal themselves; I prefer to create a setting where the person feels comfortable expressing what he or she wants to reveal. To my mind, a successful portrait is one that reveals a truth, whatever it may be, and echoes something universal while respecting the intimacy of the individual.

You recently produced a series of portraits entitled “A Portrait of Resilience – Téa by Terry” for an Australian model. How did the idea for this series come about? Was it a project like any other or a new quest? What did you try to reveal through the 17 photographs? What do you think distinguishes each portrait from another? What happened between the first and last shots? Beyond the photo shoot, what did you share with your model? Do you know what your model, Téa, expressed as a woman, as a human being, when she saw your photos?

The idea for the series “A portrait of resilience - Téa according to Terry” came from an exchange with Téa herself. She's a young Australian woman whose story is deeply moving, but also full of courage and strength. This project was unlike any other. It was a true artistic and human quest. Téa inspired me with her story and her ability to transform hardship into inner strength.

Through these 17 photographs, I sought to reveal the many facets of her resilience: her vulnerability, her strength, her gentleness, but also her ability to rise from her wounds. Each portrait tells a fragment of this story, an emotion or a thought of its own. What distinguishes each portrait is the moment it captures: a light, an expression, a gesture, a look that is never repeated.
a look that is never repeated. It's as if each shot reveals part of a complex puzzle of identity and reconstruction.

Between the first and the last shot, there was a natural evolution. At first, there was a certain restraint, an almost palpable shyness. But as the session progressed, Téa opened up, and a mutual trust was established. This allowed us to capture deeper, more authentic emotions. We shared much more than a photo shoot. We shared conversations, laughter, silences full of understanding.

 

Téa told me that the experience had been transformative for her. As a woman and as a human being, she saw in my photographs an image of herself that she had perhaps never perceived before: a quiet strength and beauty that transcended the scars of the past. For me, this is the greatest reward, to know that my work has had such an emotional and personal impact on someone.

Magic, complicity, surprise, encounter, revelation, singularity, passion, which of these words best speaks to you about your art?

Is there a stronger one in your eyes?

If so, which one and for what reasons?

All these words resonate deeply with my art, as each captures an essential aspect of what I seek to convey or experience through my creations. However, if there were one word that stands out for me, it would be revelation.
For me, art - whether photography or digital creation - is a process of unveiling. It's a way of revealing an emotion, a truth, a beauty that we don't always immediately perceive. Through my lens or digital tools, I like to bring to light hidden details, buried feelings, or unseen perspectives.
Revelation is also that magical moment when I see a person, a landscape or an idea in a new light, and I know I've got something special. It's this alchemy of complicity, surprise and singularity that makes each creation unique and deeply personal.
Ultimately, it's a way of sharing a brighter, more poetic vision with the world, and helping those who look at my work to discover something within themselves that they may not have seen before.

What are your artistic projects

for the coming year?

For the year ahead, there are several exciting projects on the horizon. First of all, I'd like to continue developing my series of artistic photographs for models, particularly in the beauty field, and see this series published in various specialized magazines. This project not only allows me to push my technique further, but also to collaborate with incredible people and create portraits that tell unique stories.
In parallel, I plan to venture into more abstract and experimental creations, where digital art will play a prominent role. I'm keen to explore new territories, such as dreamlike landscapes or compositions inspired by nature, while remaining faithful to this quest for beauty and positivity.
Finally, one of my big projects is to organize an auction of some of my works, with part of the proceeds going to humanitarian causes. I've long dreamed of contributing to a better world through my art, and it's something I hope to make a reality in the near future.

 

The coming year will also be an opportunity to strengthen my online presence, with more sharing and interaction on social networks, as well as the ongoing updating of my online store so that my creations reach an even wider audience. It's a year of artistic growth and evolution, and I can't wait to see where these projects take me.