Juliette, 2019
In the childhood village of Denis Dailleux, in Anjou, lived a woman of character, a true character of a novel: Juliette, her great-aunt, who died in 2017 at the age of 100. Between the photographer and his model, between the old woman and the young man, a unique complicity has created for more than 15 years a serious and funny game, a mixture of seduction, bitterness and malice.
Like a model, Juliette accepts Denis’ staging, which takes advantage of the farm’s setting, plays with objects and plants. Over the years, the photographs have become more daring and reveal an unexpected personality that seems to blossom under the lens.
Through Juliette’s portraits, magnificent in their accuracy, the reality of a modest and precarious rural world also appears, with its social codes and values, where harshness sometimes prevails over wisdom. With her strong character and her refusal of what to say, Juliette is a resistant person, driven by her intuition and sensitive intelligence. From then on, the act of photographing becomes a tribute to a modest but vibrant existence of humanity.
“When we met again, you were eighty years old. It was during a lunch at my parents’ house that I asked if you were still from this world. Life had separated us and you were so marginalized by poverty that, if you had died, I don’t think anyone would have informed me of your disappearance…
I remember very well our reunion. When I arrived in the small courtyard of your farm, you were camped outside your door, with your hands on your hips, ready to defend your territory. I asked you and asked you if you recognized me, you answered no, and when I told you who I was, you replied I thought I would never see you again.”
Denis Dailleux
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Hôtel Paul Delaroche
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