The photographic narrations of Anaïs Boileau oppose brutal light and pastel colours with a veil of irony reinforcing the desire of exoticism.
Born in France in 1992, the author lives between Paris and the south of France; she graduated in photography at ECAL (Lausanne) in 2014 and completed her first year of Master’s Degree in Photography at Central St. Martins (London) in 2017. Besides her academic studies, in 2012 she worked with Charles Freger, while during 2014 she took part in a residency at the Hong Kong Design Institute.
Her photographic work has been shown during various group exhibitions; especially her photographic project Plein Soleil that in 2015 was part of the Black Mirror exhibition in New York organized by Aperture Foundation, plus being also presented to Katmandu Photo festival in Nepal. Plein Soleil was selected for Boutographies 2016 being also one of ten finalists at the 31st edition of the international fashion and photography festival in Hyères at the Villa Noailles where she received the audience award and the Elie Saab grant.
About ‘Plein Soleil’– words by Anaïs Boileau:
Plein Soleil is about a kind of community of women sunbathing. These, with their golden skin, are exposing themselves under the omnipresent sun. They stay along the coast of the seaside towns marked by the Latin, bright and colorful architecture. There is a temporality game between women and architectures because sunlight models them the same way. The portraits of Plein Soleil represent a kind of happy idleness that exists in the south. I photographed my mum and her friends while trying to give a funny and tender sight to them, playing with the woman-image. Lost behind their sunglasses, accessories, women seem distant, pensive as absorbed by the sun. We never see their eyes due to their solarium glasses, making them impersonal. Floating between documentary and fiction, the portraits of this matriarchal community, reveal a desire for exoticism.
