While our phones and computer screens perpetually scroll through faces and joyful recollections, we find the digital world saturated with self-portraits deformed by what we want to show to others. And yet, the state of our identities is reflected in that of our environments: in the wake of a hurricane, a photograph of mangled trees quickly reminds us that we live in a damaged world. Fanny Desroches addresses the harsh realities of our time through portraits of today’s youth, sometimes too dejected to search for meaning in their own existence.

The artist captures gazes turned towards the camera, aware of being watched. Rather than seeking to conform to visual and social norms, her photographs aspire to be free from judgement and presumption: in search of the honesty of imperfection, there is no attempt to control either people or environments. Through a process of materialization, the artist considers what space her images inhabit. As she covers the surface or the frame of her works in thick coats of paint, the fragmented bodies or landscapes that make up the margins always manage to assert themselves in the limited space they’re given.

Fanny Desroches thanks the Canada Council for the Arts for its financial support.
Amélie, Charlotte, Claudine, Bijan, Alix, Sédrick, Antoine, Kat and all the other invaluable people who are always there, in front of my camera.