THE ART OF SKIING

Some skiers seek architectural precision, treating the slope as a canvas where form and structure meet. Others pursue verticality, seeking terrain where the consequences amplify with every meter. Some channel pure energy, evolving outside of any convention. These are not styles. They are languages. Different ways of articulating the same relationship to gravity, snow, and space.

Artist Greg Podevin worked with three ZAG skiers to translate these languages into visual form. He studied the images and observed how Julien Regnier, Mathis Dumas, and Enak Gavaggio moved. Then he interviewed each of them.

"The goal was to get to know their personalities beyond their athletic abilities," explains Greg. "I learned their language on the snow through video, but I needed to talk to them to get a deeper understanding."

The result is three portraits that are completely different from one another. Because skiers don't ski in the same way at all.

Julien talks about skiing as one might talk about architecture. He evokes volumes, lines, spatial tensions. A former racer turned shaper, he approaches the mountain with technical precision that serves a single purpose: to reach the moment when control gives way to flow.

"I love architecture," says Julien. "More than aesthetics or physics, it's about visual identity. I'm drawn to shapes and sculpture, but through the lens of architecture."

He studies how light interacts with snow, how the choice of lens alters perception. Greg has translated this into visual form. The portrait shows fluid movement contained within a rigid structure. Precision meets relaxation.

Mathis skis terrain where there is no margin for error. Steep, exposed high mountain slopes. It's mountaineering disguised as skiing. The environment becomes vast and unforgiving. The consequences increase with altitude.

Greg's portrait reflects this reality. The composition emphasizes scale. The skier appears small in front of the mountain. The danger lies in the verticality itself. The work examines what this form of skiing requires. Lightweight equipment for serious goals. The high mountains as a backdrop.

The portrait goes beyond glorification to lean toward documentation. This is what the choice of these lines requires.

Enak Gavaggio brings a whole different energy. Former ski cross athlete. Punk sensibility. He comes up with stories ranging from garden gnomes to tattoos, inhabiting a space where instinct leads and convention follows.

"I've always played in my life," says Enak. "I've always enjoyed inventing characters. But at the same time, I remain myself. I don't lose myself."

He expresses himself through alter egos. Rancho, his legendary character, blurs the lines between performance and reality. Greg sought to capture this exuberance in all its intensity. Someone who evolves outside the expected framework. The result channels this energy without filtering it. Heavy metal translated into snow.

The three portraits share almost nothing visually. Julien's emphasizes architectural precision. Mathis's conveys vertical consequence. Enak's embodies anarchic joy. Yet they go together.

"Beyond their differences," Greg notes, "they share something fundamental."

The three skiers use skiing to express something beyond athletic performance. The mountain becomes the medium through which they express themselves. Greg's portraits document three distinct dialects of the same language. Skiing as an art form. Three artists working on the same canvas in radically different ways.