Kourtney Roy Exhibiting in Niort and Strasbourg 

Kourtney Roy has been invited as the Guest of Honour to exhibit her work at the Villa Pérochon in Niort (Western France), as part of the Young International Photography Meetings. Titled ‘Vertigo’, this large scale retrospective presents several successive series created over a decade, featuring works from four of Roy’s most celebrated projects, including ‘Enter as Fiction’, ‘Sorry No Vacancy’, and her most recent work, ‘Last Paradise’.

‘Vertigo’ alternates between a hypnotic and disturbing atmosphere, like a daring vertigo confronting illusion and reality. True to form, Roy’s multi-disciplinary work presents themes of identity and perception, offering an immersive journey into the artist’s captivating and unsettling world. The viewer is invited to question their own relationship to image, identity and perception, reflecting on the way in which we construct ourselves through the gaze of others.

Over in Eastern France, Roy is exhibiting two series at Galerie La Chambre in Strasbourg. Presenting ‘The Other End of the Rainbow’ alongside ‘Enter as Fiction’, the exhibition highlights different facets of Roy’s practice.

“The series Enter as Fiction, in which the artist stages herself, often alone, introduces us to the performative dimension of Kourtney Roy’s work. In settings reminiscent of large-scale movies, she evokes figures from American culture. The superheroes of our childhood rub shoulders with peroxide-laced pin-ups and Lynchian characters, against a backdrop of junkyards or vast desert expanses. In these desolate and intriguing places, she embodies the heroine of a story that is different each time.”

“The Other End of the Rainbow marks a turning point in the photographer’s photographic practice. Infamous in Canada, Highway 16 is the road that crosses northern British Columbia. For some fifty years, it has been the scene of disappearances and murders of women, most of whom are First Nations. These cases, often less publicized, are marked by a casual treatment by authorities. This state of affairs is symptomatic of systemic inequality directly inherited from the country’s colonial history.

In this road trip-style project, which blends documentary photography with artistic research, Kourtney Roy weaves a narrative in multiple voices. She combines those of the missing women’s loved ones with her own impressions recorded in a journal. This series resonates like a cry denouncing violence, misogyny, and racism. This project received support for documentary photography from the Centre national des arts plastiques.”
– La Chambre

‘The Other End of the Rainbow’ at Le Chambre will run until the 18th May in Strasbourg, and ‘Vertigo’ will close at the Villa Pérochon in Niort on the 25th May.