Elene Usdin
Paris, France
Born in 1971, Elene Usdin graduated from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts
Decoratifs of Paris in 1996. Working first as an illustrator and a set decorator for
cinema, she regularly publishes her illustrations in newspapers and magazines. Visual
artist, illustrator and photographer, she develops since 2002 an artistic body of work
with precision and lightness and a great delicacy. Women are the favorite subject of her
series, with an approach that plays with genre and stereotypes. Elene Usdin does not
hesitate to put herself on stage, in self-portraits between derision, tribute to the great
female figures of the history or inspiration found in fairy tales. Rewarded in 2006 by
the Picto Prize for Young Fashion Photography and in 2008 by the International Photo
Awards, her first monograph, Stories, was published in 2013 by editions Contrejour. In
2014, the Museum of New Art in Detroit showed a large retrospective exhibition of her
work: Awake While I Am Dreaming.
