Louise
Desnos

Louise Desnos

biography

French photographer and video maker, born in 1991, based in Paris (France)

Louise Desnos initiated an instinctive photographic practice as a self-taught artist before intending the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs from which she graduated in 2017. She then continued to affirm her delicate and singular style, which she develops both in the context of personal projects, during collaborations with other artists or in the context of commissions for actors of the cultural world, arts or fashion.

Her practice maintains a paradoxical and poetic relationship with everyday coincidence. Her gaze is focused on details, materials and surfaces, bodies, identities and territories. Capturing or provoking situations and “playgrounds” that are fertile for the production of images, she builds her series by looking at her doubts and scattered dreams, by photographing what intrigues and attracts her instinctively: random elements – significant and insignificant.

Her vision and her work question the notions of laziness and melancholy (Acedia), of territory (with her images taken in China and Lebanon), of representation – of identities and genders (Women under Influence) or of photography itself (Scroll, in collaboration with Sophia Taillet).

Also touching on portraiture, documentary and fashion, she carries out commissions for the cultural press (Les Inrocks, M le Monde, Trax, Society, Mouvement, Kinfolk), the fashion world (Nike, Le Bon Marché, American Vintage, Carne Bollente) and collaborates, in parallel, with arts centres (Villa Noailles, Maison Populaire de Montreuil, La Horde, Ballet National de Marseille), but also labels, artists, designers and directors.

Since 2016, her work has been regularly exhibited in France (Festival de Mode et de Photographie, La Villa Noailles, La Design Parade, Paris Photo, la Villette, la Maison Populaire de Montreuil), in Europe (Festival Off Bratislava) and in China (Shanghai, Beijing, Xiamen and Chengdu

Series

Acedia, 2015-2024

Series | In the images of the series Acedia, they are non-events where the signs of an era remain discreet. The laziness, inhabited by these characters, proposes to translate a refusal of life as it is given to live, a search for freedom, or a space for introspection.

Within, 2021

Series | In the spring of 2021, during an artistic residency, Louise Desnos went to the Levant island. She took a photographic series where nature and naturists appear in symbiosis.

Women under influence, 2019-ongoing

Series | The series presented here is above all about portraiture, where vulnerability is strength. Friends and acquaintances embody several versions of women, and at the same time they are only portraits, a stopped moment in which a representation is played out.

Beirut, 2019

Series | While wandering in Beirut and its surroundings, I looked for situations, signs, faces capable of enlightening me on its history and its present. This set of images, made just before the Revolution started in October 2019, is nothing but an incomplete inventory of what caught my attention, which gave me keys to understand where I was.

Here are the dragons, 2019

Series | On the occasion of a cycle of three exhibitions entitled "Here are the dragons" (Ici sont les dragons) at the Maison Populaire de Montreuil, Louise Desnos was invited to carry out an original photographic work which resulted in this series of images. Each part is marked by an emblematic advertising slogan: Because we are worth it, Come as you are and Just do it.

China, 2018

Series | Shot during travels between the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, this series addresses the place of individuals, heritage and memory in a China in full mutation. A set of images that look, with a poetic and documentary look, at the transition period that the country is going through, torn between tradition and hyper modernization.

Acedia, 2015-2024

Series | In the images of the series Acedia, they are non-events where the signs of an era remain discreet. The laziness, inhabited by these characters, proposes to translate a refusal of life as it is given to live, a search for freedom, or a space for introspection.

Within, 2021

Series | In the spring of 2021, during an artistic residency, Louise Desnos went to the Levant island. She took a photographic series where nature and naturists appear in symbiosis.

Women under influence, 2019-ongoing

Series | The series presented here is above all about portraiture, where vulnerability is strength. Friends and acquaintances embody several versions of women, and at the same time they are only portraits, a stopped moment in which a representation is played out.

Beirut, 2019

Series | While wandering in Beirut and its surroundings, I looked for situations, signs, faces capable of enlightening me on its history and its present. This set of images, made just before the Revolution started in October 2019, is nothing but an incomplete inventory of what caught my attention, which gave me keys to understand where I was.

Here are the dragons, 2019

Series | On the occasion of a cycle of three exhibitions entitled "Here are the dragons" (Ici sont les dragons) at the Maison Populaire de Montreuil, Louise Desnos was invited to carry out an original photographic work which resulted in this series of images. Each part is marked by an emblematic advertising slogan: Because we are worth it, Come as you are and Just do it.

China, 2018

Series | Shot during travels between the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, this series addresses the place of individuals, heritage and memory in a China in full mutation. A set of images that look, with a poetic and documentary look, at the transition period that the country is going through, torn between tradition and hyper modernization.

Acedia, 2015-2024

Series | In the images of the series Acedia, they are non-events where the signs of an era remain discreet. The laziness, inhabited by these characters, proposes to translate a refusal of life as it is given to live, a search for freedom, or a space for introspection.

Within, 2021

Series | In the spring of 2021, during an artistic residency, Louise Desnos went to the Levant island. She took a photographic series where nature and naturists appear in symbiosis.

Women under influence, 2019-ongoing

Series | The series presented here is above all about portraiture, where vulnerability is strength. Friends and acquaintances embody several versions of women, and at the same time they are only portraits, a stopped moment in which a representation is played out.

Beirut, 2019

Series | While wandering in Beirut and its surroundings, I looked for situations, signs, faces capable of enlightening me on its history and its present. This set of images, made just before the Revolution started in October 2019, is nothing but an incomplete inventory of what caught my attention, which gave me keys to understand where I was.

Here are the dragons, 2019

Series | On the occasion of a cycle of three exhibitions entitled "Here are the dragons" (Ici sont les dragons) at the Maison Populaire de Montreuil, Louise Desnos was invited to carry out an original photographic work which resulted in this series of images. Each part is marked by an emblematic advertising slogan: Because we are worth it, Come as you are and Just do it.

China, 2018

Series | Shot during travels between the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, this series addresses the place of individuals, heritage and memory in a China in full mutation. A set of images that look, with a poetic and documentary look, at the transition period that the country is going through, torn between tradition and hyper modernization.

Interviews

Trax
—

By Sarah Prince, 2020

Portrait of Louise Desnos on the occasion of her take over of Trax’s instagram, from 04 to 06 December.

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Tafmag
—
By Juliette Mantelet, 2018

Portrait of Louise Desnos and presentation of part of her series “From Acedia”.

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Les Inrockuptibles
—

By Aurélie Derhee, 2018

During trips to China to present her work, Louise Desnos took photographs in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, delivering a personal vision of this country.

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Doors
—

2018

For the first Franco-Chinese fashion meetings, the Doors agency organised an exhibition entitled “A nous la mode!”, bringing together three photographers, including Louise Desnos. On this occasion, Louise Desnos comments on three of her images, related to fashion.

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i-D
—

2016

On the occasion of the Hyères photo festival, i-D interviewed the 10 finalists of the 2016 edition, including Louise Desnos, with her series “Acedia”.

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Exhibitions

ICI SONT LES DRAGONS
—
Maison Populaire, Montreuil (FRANCE)
—
From January to December 2019

More information

SCROLL
—
Galerie du Pop Up, Paris (FRANCE)
—
From 18 to 31 March 2019

More information

book

Acedia

Witty Books - 2024

Acedia

Witty Books - 2024

Acedia

Witty Books - 2024

Awards

Finalist for the Libraryman Award

For the series “Acedia”

2019

Finalist at the Villa Noailles fashion and photo festival in Hyères

For the series “Acedia”

2016