Kourtney Roy’s work is bound up in an ambiguous and cinematic image-making that borders the real and the fantastical. Her approach to photography provokes contemplation and reconfiguration of common place subjects via playful revelation of the uncanny.
Kourtney Roy Prints For Sale (30):
Artist Biography
Kourtney Roy
B. 1981
EnquireEarly Life
Born in Northern Ontario, Canada in 1981, Kourtney Roy received a Bachelor of Fine Arts, specialising in photography, from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver. Upon graduating Roy relocated to Paris, where she lives and works.
Kourtney Roy
B. 1981
EnquirePhotographic Career
Roy has produced several series which all share the artist’s bold and cinematic aesthetic. Staged in laundrettes, motels, supermarkets and various other banal locations Roy creates hyper-realistic images that resemble film stills.
Throughout her work Roy plays with ideas of the bizarre, whether it be a lone female figure walking along a deserted road in a vast landscape or a woman photographed through the wing mirror of a car, Roy’s photographs are permeated with an unsettling air. In her work, Roy creates familiar still images of stereotyped heroines, and using herself as the model she invents numerous characters for herself. This is a crucial element to her work, Roy has stated “It’s usually the male gaze, and the woman is the object to be looked at. So the idea was becoming the person who objectifies, but also objectifying myself. I just thought it was interesting to play the dual role.”
Awards & Exhibitions
Roy has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including the Prix Picto in 2007 and a grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts in 2015. Her work has been exhibited internationally in China, Australia, Russia and Switzerland. Recent shows have included a solo show at KM Fine Arts, 2017 and group shows at Andre Hug, 2014, Musee de l’Elysee and Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, 2021.
