Isabelle Le Minh
Fine art photographer Isabelle Le Minh questions the history of photography, its myths, its uses and its future.
Updated on 06/12/2019
2 min
In the 1990s, Isabelle Le Minh left her job as a patent engineer in Berlin to turn to photography. She graduated from the Higher National College of Photography in Arles in 1996 and taught at the Le Havre-Rouen Higher College of Art and Design.
From 2000, her work was exhibited in prestigious settings: at the Salon de Montrouge (2010), at the Arles Photography Festival (2012), at Paris Photo (2012), at the Île-de-France Photography Centre (2014), as part of the French Society for Photography (2014), and for Montreal Photography Month (2015).
Nominated for the Nicéphore Niepce Prize in 2014, the artist also won the Young Creation prize in 2000, then the Trafik Fine Art Photography Prize in 2003. She is represented by the Christophe Gaillard Gallery in Paris.
Photography, installation, painting, video: Isabelle Le Minh’s work is multi-faceted. The artist probes the nature of the photographic image: its functions, uses, theory and founding myths. Testament to this is Darkroomscapes After Hiroshi Sugimoto, as much a tribute to the Japanese artist as an exploration of the silver halide process – from shooting to printing.
Isabelle Le Minh often uses diversion to revisit the major trends of photography with humour. This is the recent case of “After Photography”, an exhibition presented in 2017 at the Normandie-Rouen Regional Contemporary Arts Foundation: references to visual artists and art theorists intertwine in a vein that is both poetic and conceptual.
Having enjoyed a residency at Villa Kujoyama in 2019, Isabelle Le Minh has also exhibited at MOCAK in Krakow, Poland, at the SBC Gallery and at Montreal Photography Month in Canada in 2015.
Her work is included in several international public and private collections: Andra Spallart in Vienna, the DZ Bank in Frankfurt, Germany, the 21c Museum in Louisville and the Dorfman Projects collection in New York.
Her work has also been presented in Spain, as part of the Barcelona Contemporary Art Fair in 2011.
- 1965
1965
Isabelle Le Minh is born in Bad Salzuflen-Schötmar (Germany).
- 2000
2000
The artist receives the Young Creation Award for Contemporary Art.
- 2003
2003
Elle se voit décerner le prix de photographie plasticienne Trafik.
- 2016
2016
Isabelle le Minh est lauréate du prix Révélation Livre d’Artiste de l’ADAGP.
In 2019, Isabelle Le Minh was selected to spend time at the Villa Kujoyama, a residency for artists in Japan supported by the Institut français.