Femmes Intérieures by Estelle Lagarde
"In an intuitive way I know that each place where we live retains a bit of our presence. The privacy of a room watches over the most private story: that of our sensations and that of our dreams. In the city I visit old abandoned buildings and I elaborate, for the last time, inventories of places fallen into disuse. Four walls, filled with what they have learnt from us, give back with their decay the image of a silhouette. Torn wallpaper, dark blue pieces of carpet and yellowed paint are the faded reflection of a tenant’s tenderness."
"When entering these old houses something moves me. Then I long to put a character inside them, a last breath of life, as if I wanted to make live again an instant and the hearts that lived here. I try to find the intensity of an emotion in those walls. A woman’s emotion, a woman with no face and no age, perhaps me, perhaps another person, dressed in black or sometimes naked. Colour photography allows me to show places as they are when I come across them. Nothing is modified by removing or adding elements. I choose the best perspective to show the beauty of the decoration present in the portrayed room. Whereas black and white photography leads to the essential quality of a memory, of a dream...of a poem. It’s no more important to know what colour can explain. What remains it is a sensation, just a sensation. To explain what I love in these places I’d say that I make a parallel between a specific reality and my mental images of them. The look gives rise to a story and becomes a metaphor of our fragile existence when it goes from a click to another. In these places something happened, or it could have happened.....””Estelle Lagarde in conversation with Bianca Lerza

Estelle Lagarde has trained as both architect and photographer. From 1996 she started to cultivate a passion for photography that would lead her to create photographs in which black and white images capture close relationships between characters, landscapes, or places, and specific moods. This leads to a perception of the undefined, profound element present in the depicted subjects. She exercises her technical skills to find the right viewpoint from which to create contrasting images that evoke certain emotions. Her most recent work focuses on both the portrait and places that change as time passes. Empty houses, abandoned buildings, isolation and decay are all reoccurring themes, as is the passage of time. These are staged to show frailty and narrative in a moving way.
Estelle currently lives and works in Paris. She participates regularly in exhibitions exposures and demonstrations. In 2007 she was supported by the Foundation Ecart-Pomaret.

Selected Published Work:-n° 9, mars 2007, revue «Miroir de l’art», mars 2007, revue «Photo sélection »march 2007, revue «Photo Life

Selected One Man Exhibitions Include;-2007 - Bibliothèque François Villon, Rencontres photographiques du 10ème arr, Paris- MK2 Bibliothèque, Paris, 2006 - Galerie des AAB dans le cadre du Mois de la Photo-off, Paris

Selected Group Shows Include;-2007- MAC 2000, Manifestation d’Art Contemporain, Hervé Bourdin, Espace Champerret, Paris-Les Rencontres Leica, Espace Commines, Paris- Le Bunker, Festival Manifesto, Toulouse- exposition/vente de solidarité, avec Autremonde, Paris- Installation au Parc des Enclos, «Zoo», avec l’Arpac, Deauville- Espace Dialogos, «Polyvisions et Métamorphies », Cachan- Galerie des AAB, exposition «Dé-visage(s)», Paris 2006- Espace Beaurepaire, rétrospective dans le cadre du Mois de la Photo-off , Paris-Agence Ebloui, sélection photographies d’auteurs, Mois de la Photo-off , Paris, - Delta, Paris - Espace Beaurepaire «Visions de Voyage» avec Paris-Photographique, - Mairie du 18ème à Paris dans le cadre de l’Observatoire Photographique

Selected Prizes include;-2006 Bourse d’aide à la création, Fondation Ecart Pommaret 2006 - 2ème prix, catégorie « les gens », Concours Images Internationales, Photo Sélection.