Hélène and the bubble gum

Introduction

In her series Modern Portraits, Parisian photographer Emmanuelle Descraques puts young models in roles where they embody retro-styles beyond their years. She grasps the aesthetic of her mentor, Kourtney Roy, finding inspiration in the colouring and enraptured expressions. Just like Roy’s photographs, Descraques’ portraits a modern face to styles from the past: adolescence meets nostalgia. At the same time, both photographers seek meaning in the zeitgeist by capturing a specific outlook on life along with its prevailing views, which they interweave with divergent threads from fashion history.

Descraques takes it a step further and explores the space between documentary photography – as seen in Dutch artist Rineke Dijkstra’s raw portraits of regular people isolated from their surroundings – and the highly-modern, aesthetic production found in fashion photography. At the same time, her striking portraits bring a well-known but nearly forgotten feeling back to the surface.

Bio

French photographer Emmanuelle Descraques studied at Gobelins L'École de L'Image in Paris. After graduating, she worked as an assistant to renowned photographer Kourtney Roy. Her finely composed works have appeared in numerous publications, and she has exhibited her work at one of Europe’s most important photography festivals: Les Recontres d'Arles 2016.