Elisabeth Montagnier, Untitled, Red Rose #1

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Still life photograph, red rose series, mounted on aluminum. Élisabeth Montagnier was born in Algeria. She is a little lost … Read more Still life photograph, red rose series, mounted on aluminum. Élisabeth Montagnier was born in Algeria. She is a little lost when she arrives in Marseille in 62, does not understand very well what happens, she has not even been able to say goodbye to her girlfriends ... Not very good student, she hardly takes her Bac and wants to enter At the Beaux-Arts in Marseille, but she is too young. At the time she draws all the time (and very badly according to her!). Her father, a feminist before the hour, told him "there is no subordinate job for women" and would have liked her to do medicine or law ... Finally she enters the Julian Met Academy of Penninghen In Paris to prepare entrance examinations to the major art schools. "That's where I learned to draw. It can be learned, but if you are not very talented, you have to practice or else you forget very quickly, " confides the photographer. "At first the picture came as a tool, a help, a palliative to drawing that was not acquired. But I was immediately fascinated by everything related to this medium, the working methods and even the material. The mastery of the technique allows me not to have a brake in my creativity. I imagine and I do. I'm actually a photographer, I always need to have a camera with me, because if I do not, I'm afraid of missing something . " Then Elisabeth succeeded her entrance contest at Arts-Déco in Paris, then returned to the Beaux-Arts of Marseille in the section "Visual communication". At the same time, she began working for the press and quickly switched to the advertising picture. "I was creative but in the pub. In fact, I was trained for visual communication at the Fine Arts, it's not like the plastic arts sections. We were technical, in addition to the photo, we were doing sociology, marketing, graphic design, we were taught a " trade", she explains. In advertising, we work for agencies or for clients on-line. Elisabeth also works the artistic photography in her corner, without ever showing what she is doing, until the day when she will be asked her photos for the Issima shop, and everything goes from there! Roland Herlory , director of a large French house, went past this shop, saw her photos and contacted her. He had a space in Saint-Barthélémy in the West Indies, wanted to create a gallery and offered to expose it. So his photos travel all over the world: in South America, in the United States, in Europe. Today she continues to work as an advertising photographer, sharing her time between art and advertising: "I like it too, the work of control . " Elisabeth photographed as much outside, with the complicity of nature, as in studio. In her workshop, she staged her images in a way that was her own: while she continued to draw for ideas, she bought and stored all sorts of unusual objects "that spoke to her" : a multicolored curtain, a buoy, A globe, butterflies, scoubidous, figurines, plastic skulls ... And then she cogits: "What could I do beautiful with all this? My pictures must be a happy moment. I have always tried to make people dream, to embellish life, to enliven it. One is daily assaulted by a multitude of violent images. I am very sensitive and I need to recreate harmony, beauty, gentleness and cheerfulness. I would like my images to be champagne bubbles. A photo like a candy in the pocket! " . See less