Daphné Dejay

Daphné Dejay was born in Paris in 1968. At 18, she worked in the studio of Henri Cueco in Paris then entered the School of Fine Arts in Cergy Pontoise. There she developed and explored several techniques with avidity: Bernard Marcadet called it “the painting machine”.

At 20, she was already exhibiting in Paris. In 1991, she won a painting prize in Narbonne. Her favorite theme was the female body. The more the painting advances, using different media, the more the act of painting becomes refined, the color disappears, the line remains, the gesture then the trace of a movement ... The creative process becomes a major questioning and this is how 'after a residency at the Beaux-Arts in Marseille, photography appeared to him as another witness to the pictorial.

This thirst to grasp the elusive nature of a body in motion, in gestation, always fleeting or traversed by time, thus pushes her to pass behind and in front of the objective: it is indeed through the self-portrait that she tries to 'embody a morphogenesis of the body and of the creative act.

Photography will be the major medium of his work for ten years, even if drawing remains the paradigm of his approach. The book “Fleurs Obscures”, published by Editions Complicité, traces this decade of photographic research. His exhibition at the Espace Camille Claudel in Charenton le pont will present a retrospective. She will later obtain a photography prize.

Then the approach moves again, from the human body to the larger body of nature, with its series “Earth”, “Dalhia”, “Iris” and, which will herald the rest of his artistic exploration, his series on animals. , "Bulls".

The year 2000 a new resonance takes place in her and by extension her work: her pregnancy and the birth of her son will connect her to the creative universe of childhood. A new period opens up dedicated to illustration and expression for young people.

From then on, she rediscovers the colored palette and appropriates the digital medium. She was very quickly asked to illustrate several books: "We stole my tetes", "Who wants my pacifier", "The album tenderness of the new mother" and "Bestiary". Present at several exhibitions, she will thus obtain the illustration prize at the Eaubonne Youth Fair.

With her bestiary, she renews her research on the question of the body and enriches it with that of our links with animals: in ceremonial costumes, Daphné Dejay's animals construct a mythology which is personal to her. A few figures stand out around the Frog, that of the Rabbit - with the birth of the installation of the "Jean Gens" in homage to Jean de la Fontaine - and the Rhinoceros.

Soon, the resin pieces make it possible to explore the sculpture - which she had already approached with the "Nini's" series (in homage to Niki de Saint Phalle) - staged with sets of reflections keeping the question of the image: each creation placed in effect on a mirror sends back looks and traces, diffracts bodies. The spectator looks at the work which is looking at him and this kaleidoscope which he believed to be silent becomes a poetic song inviting everyone to recognize the role of art as a vital force and mediation between man and the world.