Denis Dailleux

Denis Dailleux, (b. 1958, Angers) lives in Paris when he is not in India, Egypt or Ghana. Represented by Agency VU', Camera Obscura Gallery (Paris), Galerie 127 (Marrakech), Galerie Peter Sellem (Francfort) and the Box Galerie (Brussels), his work has been exhibited and distinguished worldwide.

He is the acclaimed author of several books about Egypt: Habibi Cairo, Le Caire mon amour (Filigranes, 1997), Le Caire (Le Chêne, 2001), Impressions d'Egypte (La Martinière, 2011), Egypte, Les Martyrs de la révolution (Le Bec en lair, 2014), Mères et fils (Le Bec en l'air, 2014), Ghana (Le Bec en l'air, 2016) and Persan-Beaumont (Le Bec en l'air, 2018).

"Imbued with his distinctive delicacy, Denis Dailleux's photographic work appears calm on the surface, yet is incredibly demanding, run through by an undercurrent of constant self-doubt and propelled by the essential personal bond he develops with those (and that which) he frames with his camera.

His passion for people has naturally led him to develop portraiture as his preferred means of representing those whose true self he feels an urge to get closer to. Which he has, with actress Catherine Deneuve as well as with countless anonymous subjects from the slums of Cairo, working with the same discretion, waiting to get from his subjects what he is hoping they will offer him, without ever asking for it, simply hoping that it will happen. That is how he has patiently constructed a unique portrait of his beloved Cairo to create, with black and whites of exemplary classicism and colors of rare subtlety, the definite alternative to the heaps of cultural and touristic clichés which clutter our minds." -- Christian Caujolle

These past years, while continuing to photograph Egypt, Denis Dailleux has traveled regularly to Ghana where he explores new relations with regard to body and space, life and death, community, the sea, which opens up new horizons to his photographic research.

Regularly exhibited and published in the national and international press, Denis Dailleux is also the winner of prestigious prizes, including the World Press Photo - Category Staged Portraits for his series Mother and Son in 2014, and in 2019 the Roger Pic Prize awarded by Scam for his series In Ghana - We shall meet again.

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Galerie Camera Obscura
Galerie 127
Galerie Peter Sellem
Box Galerie

Denis Dailleux: Juliette

By Denis Dailleux

Publisher : Publisher : Bec en l'air

2019 | 96 pages

A sensitive portrait of peasant life through the long complicity between a photographer and his great-aunt.In Denis Dailleux's childhood village, in Anjou, lived a woman of character, a true character from a novel: Juliette, his great aunt, who died in 2017 at the age of 100. Between the photographer and his model, between the old woman and the young man, a unique bond was established for more than 15 years a serious and funny game, a mixture of seduction, harshness and mischief. Through the portraits of Juliette, staged in the setting of the farm, a rural world appears, with its social codes and values, where harshness sometimes wins out over wisdom. Her refusal of what will be said makes Juliette a figure of resistance, driven by her intuition and a sensitive intelligence. From then on, the act of photographing becomes a tribute to a modest but vibrant existence of humanity.

Denis Dailleux: Persan-Beaumont

By Denis Dailleux

Publisher : Publisher : Bec en l'air

2018 | 72 pages

Photographed by Denis Dailleux since 1987, this series of portraits, published here for the first time, begins with an encounter on a train with "a bunch of happy commuters, a radio cassette in their hand who broadcast rap." Two months later, the photographer has an appointment with them at Persan-Beaumont station (Val d´Oise). His immersion will last five years. The long photo shoots he had with young people from the neighborhood would probably no longer be possible today in this neighborhood where the situation was already tense. Thus, the timeless power of Denis Dailleux's photographs, combined with the text of Abdellah Taïa with which he returned to Persan-Beaumont thirty years later, make this book an important publication on the sensitive subject of the suburbs.

Denis Dailleux: Ghana

By Denis Dailleux

Publisher : Publisher : Bec en l'air

2016 | 112 pages

Denis Dailleux is recognized for the passionate portrait he has painted of Egypt and its people for over fifteen years. In search of new creative spaces, he has visited Ghana regularly since 2009. The fishermen of the port of James Town, the former district of Accra, the capital, have become one of his favorite subjects. Within this community, he finds an inexhaustible source of images: seascapes with changing skies, fishermen's ballets, orchestrated movements of women and children in the harbor... He gracefully explores new relations with regard to body and space, life and death, community, the sea, which opens up new horizons to his photographic research.The serenity, the pictorial evidence of his images rekindle a world that is threatened today and is, as such, all the more precious.

Fils de roi, portraits d'Egypte

By Denis Dailleux

Publisher : Publisher : Gallimard

2008 | 128 pages

By practicing a seemingly calm, demanding photography, inhabited by permanent doubts, Denis Cailleux patiently constructed for fifteen years an unpublished portrait of Egypt, with which he maintains a romantic relationship. His passion for people naturally led him to develop portraiture as a privileged mode of figuration of those for whom he wanted to get closer to what they were. He is represented by the Vu agency and the Camera Obscura gallery.

Denis Dailleux

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Agence VU'

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@denisdailleux

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