Ann Garde
Introduced to the Orient by her Bordeaux origins, the discovery of a bottle with a mysterious “Retour des Indes” label fascinated her as a teenager. She photographed it, and many years later, she set off for Asia, and more particularly India, where she visited more than thirty times.
In 1995, Anne Garde was awarded the Villa Médicis Hors les Murs grant for her work on India, Salon indien.
With Laure Vernière, poet, painter and writer, they form a creative duo, penning articles for the press and numerous books, including the highly acclaimed Rajasthan Style (Assouline) in 2015. This refined book is a compilation of 30 years of travels in India.
At the same time, for over 20 years, Anne Garde has been creating installations in natural, urban and even industrial sites – Atlantic beaches, abandoned factories, concrete carcasses – which she photographs with a 4X5-inch Extralight camera and “disturbs” by intervening at the moment of shooting, by projecting colored pigments, diffusing points of light or smoke. “Shock with beauty”, as she puts it.
This desire to capture something else, between the real and the imaginary, led her to an even more personal approach: playing between negative and positive, developing her photos using an innovative process that reverses the colors. The result is a flirtation with abstraction that opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
