Opening Reception : January 12, 2012 at 7PM
Artist Talk : Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 2PM
Salon Connex : Saturday, February 25, 2012 at 6:30PM at Charlotte Street Arts Centre
Tokyo Hotel Story
Nathalie Daoust
Living in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Quebec
A photographic exhibition including some in 3D.
Nathalie Daoust’s latest project, Tokyo Hotel Story, continues her exploration of female sexuality and subversion of gender stereotypes. Spending several months in one of the biggest S&M “love hotels” in Japan, Daoust photographed 39 women of all ages in their private rooms, surrounded by the specialist equipment and dressed in the regalia that helps define their trade of dominatrix. Her aim is to give a different insight into the women as dominating beings, which conflicts with the Japanese image of femininity, where women have become more passive beauties. Daoust believes that numerous challenges still exist in terms of confronting deep-rooted stereotypes of gender-roles, not only in Japan but in the world. Her work helps her to delve beyond taboos while showing the universal human desire to escape reality and create fantasy worlds that often oscillate between dream, reality, and perversion. Tokyo Hotel Story is a series of photographs that underline Daoust’s passion for the surreal and the sensual, and which shine a light into the darker shadows not only of femininity but human sexuality in general.
Nathalie Daoust first broke onto the scene in 1997 while photographing the themed rooms of the Carlton Arms Hotel in New York. This project, her first solo exhibition, was then published into a book, New York Hotel Story. Since then, Daoust has created several new conceptual projects that have taken her all over the world, from the love hotels of Tokyo, to a brothel in Brazil, to a darkroom in Sydney, to the dreamy landscape of the snow-capped Swiss alps. Her objective as an artist is to push the boundaries of photography through experimental methods. While working with new mediums and discovering new darkroom techniques, Daoust explores the undefinable realm between truth, fantasy, and the human desire of escapism.
