Kourtney Roy

Enter as Fiction 32From the series ‘Enter as Fiction’

Kourtney Roy Biography Kourtney Roy is a Canadian photographer and filmmaker based in Paris. Intrigued by the possibility of creating a tragic mythology of the self, Roy explores the boundaries between reality, fiction, performance, and cinema. Working primarily in color, she creates meticulously staged photographs in which she often appears as the central figure, assuming a range of characters and roles. Kourtney Roy's photos draw on the visual language of cinema, fashion, and pop culture, placing solitary figures within motels, roadside landscapes, suburban environments, and other seemingly ordinary settings. Through theatrical composition and subtle humor, she introduces an atmosphere of ambiguity and unease. Her photographs suggest fragments of narratives, resembling scenes from films that exist only in the viewer's imagination. Kourtney Roy has published several books on her work. These include Ils pensent déjà que je suis folle , the artist book that accompanied her exhibition at Le Bal, and Enter as Fiction , both published by Filigrane Éditions. Her other titles are Northern Noir (Éditions La Pionnière ), California (Éditions Louis Vuitton, 2016), The Tourist (André Frère Éditions, 2020), and The Other End of the Rainbow and Survivalist Failures (both 2022). Roy's awards include the Prix Picto in 2007, the Emily Award in 2012, the Prix Carte Blanche PMU / Le Bal in 2013, a nomination for the Prix Elysée in 2014, and the Pernod Ricard Carte Blanche Prize in 2018. In 2019, her short film Morning, Vegas won best experimental film at the Brest European Short Film Festival. In 2022 she was selected for the Bibliothèque nationale de France's Grande commande photojournalisme . The Other End of the Rainbow was named Photobook of the Year at the Prix des Libraires in 2023. In 2024 she received the Prix Swiss Life à 4 mains with composer Mathias Delplanque, reflecting her growing engagement with cross-disciplinary work. Kourtney Roy's work has been exhibited widely in France and internationally. Venues include Festival Planches Contact in Deauville (2012), Le Bal in Paris (2014), Portraits Festival in Vichy (2015), Paris Photo (2018), Villa Pérochon in Niort (2025), and Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire in Paris. In 2025 she presented The Tourist at Les Rencontres d'Arles . Her photographs have also appeared at the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne, the Head On Photo Festival in Sydney, and the Moscow International Biennale of Photography.