Annie Lemoux

Artist Bio:
I was born and raised in France. Since age 11 when my father put a camera in my hand, most likely a Kodak Regent, foldable, portable, I had a fascination with photography. My father told me that everything I saw could be beautiful…
I have the same fascination to this day. I was slow to coming to this art full time. In my 40’s life circumstances allowed for this to happen. I have been doing it every day ever since.
My interests in photography are multiple: documentary, conceptual, the human figure, magic realism, historical alternative techniques, trees etc… That explains why I define myself both as a photographer and an image maker. I define the photographer in me as the observer and seer of the world outside me, attempting to capture it with all the emotions and feelings that were associated with that place in that moment. The image maker is a radically opposite activity that is birthed in my imagination and inner world that I then translate into images.
My work has been shown internationally in Japan, Mexico, Korea, all one woman shows. I was sponsored by Nippon Polaroid, since defunct, for a commissioned double project for a show of 30 emulsion lifts. My work that travelled throughout Mexico for two years was an analog Black and white documentary show of 30 images with the title of: “France memories of yesterday”. I had a bi-national show sponsored by the Tijuana CECUT, exhibited in both CECUT, Tijuana and at Centro Cultural de la Raza, in Balboa park, on the “Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico” where I went documenting for over 15 years to many different locations. And my show last year in Korea was more that 60 images, all documentary, on France, and on Chicano Park, a local historical celebration that community has every year at that location. The latter is a portfolio I have been working on for more than 20 years.
I worked as an adjunct professor of photography at Palomar college for 16 years, at the UCSD extension for 12 and at San Diego city college briefly. I am now retired and currently working on my large archives of past work I have still to explore.
I currently continue to participate in shows.

Artist Statement:
Winter at Versailles and Marly parks
When I was a child living in Paris my father took me every Sunday to a different park or different historical location outside of Paris, to play, to gather flowers, to visit castles and churches or play in the snow as that might be and at all different seasons.
In his late 90’s he retired in a home at Versailles where I used to visit him and to distract him I, in turn, would drive him to all these places we went to when I was a child. The closest being Versailles and Marly which was the summer residence of the Sun king though no building remains except crumbling walls. These images are not the usual ones a tourist might expect visiting these places in full summer. In winter the gardens are empty, the trees without leaves are skeletons, the statues covered to prevent their cracking from a severe frost. Therefore the feelings they exude is much more of a subdued melancholy, of abandonment and of forlornness, particularly in winter after it has snowed. This is the time when I captured these images. My hope is that they indeed reflect all those.
The set of four images that I am submitting in this series are originally part of a much larger show that was created using 669 Polaroid instant film and projecting onto it black and white negatives to obtain what was termed then as an emulsion transfer. Given the susceptibility of Polaroid film to fading through long light exposure, I decide to copy the original negative Polaroid emulsion transfer prints and turn them into positive images. These four images are the resulting transformations.

AnnieLemouxPhotography.com

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"Versailles Gardens, frozen fountain""Marly Park, yew trees perspective""Versailles gardens, covered statue and yew trees alley""Marly Park, ruins"