Reality and fiction constantly merge in Kourtney Roy’s work. A pure playground that she enjoys exploring, decomposing, diverting, and re-examining. This year, the Canadian photographer and director, who has been based in Paris for 20 years, is accumulating news between her series “The Tourist,” exhibited at the Rencontres d’Arles, and that of “Last Paradise,” winner of the Swiss Life Prize with Mathias Delplanque.
For Kourtney Roy, ideas often come from her desires. “I love imaginary worlds. I enjoy living in them and playing roles, even if I’m not an actress,” she explains. “I love the characters I portray in my photographs. It also quickly became an artistic choice to avoid appropriating other people’s stories. Today, I hardly ever make mood boards anymore and I don’t have a guiding principle. I go where I want to go, with an idea in mind. Then I trust my subconscious. I don’t force anything; I know the idea will come. By going to the place that inspires me, everything comes to fruition.”
Artificial memories
Self-portraiture and self-mockery, nihilism and pretense, pastiche and wig, the strange and the bizarre, glam and glitter are all part of his images. All concocted in a polished, cinematic aesthetic where bright colors dominate. Both series combine all the ingredients of this polyglot’s trademark.
With “The Tourist”, we head to Cancun and Miami for a trip through holiday clichés. Irony, fakery, and bad taste are all part of the mix here, alongside hotel pools and on the fine sandy beaches eaten away by seaweed. On the agenda: heavy tanning, faux leopard bikinis, wigs with scrunched-up hair, XXL fake nails, fake jewelry, shiny, body-built bodies, dripping ice cream, cocktails with straws, cigarettes in their mouths, and snorkels…
Some images immediately bring to mind Magda, Lin Shaye’s character in There’s Something About Mary, a boozer with a sun-baked body and a reflective aluminum foil mirror. Others evoke, in an outrageous and exaggerated way, the jet set captured by Slim Aarons. “I wanted a slightly vulgar vacation. It made me laugh to overplay all these clichés. I’ve seen people do it a thousand times better than me in a serious way. I pay homage to them. I immediately thought of spring break in Cancun and Miami for its very plastic side.”
Amidst the shells and crustaceans, even the flamingo buoys and starfish are trying to grab the lead role. Everything is there, except for the smiles of this tourist and her companions. A sad world, where appearances impose their reign, preferring to exhibit the false memory of the holidays rather than enjoying the pleasure in real time.
“This is the first time I’ve worked with so many models,” she says. This series, conceived before the pandemic and published in a collection by André Frères in 2020, is back in the spotlight for the Rencontres d’Arles, where she attends every year. “This event is an opportunity for me to see friends again, who would otherwise be impossible elsewhere.”
A visual odyssey
With “Last Paradise,” we head to Rimini, a small Italian seaside town on the Adriatic coast, for a disturbing and ghostly stay, off-season. Kourtney Roy collaborates here with composer Mathias Delplanque for an imaginary road trip between image and sound, winner of the Swiss Life 4-Hands Prize. “I wanted a place that was a bit kitsch, where it wasn’t too bad in February. He told me about Rimini through his concerts. I went there in 2021, for two days. The city is a bit retro, with pastel colors, bars, kiosks. It was perfect!”
Here she embodies a whimsical woman, always adorned with wigs and stylized vintage dresses, who goes about her business as strange as it is bizarre. Her scenes of beachfront, streets, and dilapidated architecture are emptied of any human presence. Like the last woman on Earth, lost in space-time. Like a giantess overlooking a desolate place, reenacting Attack of the 50-Foot Woman in a different way. “I contacted the owners to take photos in this amusement park. They were very generous, opened it for me, and lent me a cart for my props. I wandered around the miniatures for two days with my wig on.”
While she continues to share her love for Stephen Shore’s urban landscapes, David Lynch’s imagination, and Guy Bourdin’s glossy, phantasmagorical humor, she also draws inspiration from Luigi Ghirri. “He took many photographs in Rimini, with these empty squares and forgotten children’s toys. I like these two series because they contrast. Cancún and Miami are extravagant, Rimini is old-fashioned. The atmospheres are different. Everything becomes very interesting to me.”
Mathias Delplanque’s score consolidates the humorous and suspenseful atmosphere, somewhere between surrealism and melancholy. The composer, born in Ouagadougou and based in Nantes, creates a sonic space that blends vintage synthesizers “made in Rimini” from the 1970s, giallo and Z-movie music, easy listening, and Balearic disco.”I had already worked with him to compose the music for a short film that wasn’t released. When I learned about the Swiss Life 4-Hands Prize, I wondered who I wanted to work with. Mathias was the obvious choice. His work is experimental. He can imagine variations and very different worlds. He has his own style, but knows how to adapt. It was a truly collaborative effort in Rimini. It was fantastic!”
From still to moving image
The duo transports us to a final elsewhere, where everything seems both possible and futile. As in previous editions, the winners benefit from excellent visibility at the heart of an exhibition tour in Paris and the surrounding region. After the Rencontres d’Arles last year, both stopped off at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Villa Pérochon in Niort and the Art Rock festival in Saint-Brieuc, for a first live performance, before finishing the trip at the Jeu de Paume in Tours. A beautiful photographic book with a 45 rpm vinyl record was also published by Filigranes.
If Kourtney Roy masters the still image, she also knows how to play with moving images. In 2024, she produced her first feature film, Kryptic, presented at the SXSW festival in Austin. “My desire to direct has been present for a long time. I love cinema, I taught myself by starting with short films. For this film, I worked with Paul Bromley, an English friend. He contacted me to write a screenplay based on my work. I had no idea it would take me five years of my life.” Today, she is thinking about her second feature. “It’s still being thought about, but it will be the story of a serial killer in Paris, a failed artist who kills her enemies by making bad video art with her murders,” she sums up with a laugh.
Her schedule is still full, including the second part of her residency in Naples, drawing on the energy and movement of this Italian city. A solo show is planned with the Filles du Calvaire gallery at Paris Photo next November. Kourtney Roy thus continues her autofictions without a break, which are constantly renewed.
Exhibitions “The Tourist” at the Rencontres d’Arles at the Old Mistral College from July 7 to October 5, 2025 and “Last Paradise” at the Jeu de Paume at the Château de Tours from June 20 to September 20, 2025.
