In the second edition of our exclusive series called “ELLES” (plural of « she » in french) French artist Pauline Gallot captured the heart, soul and beauty of Lila in Vallée-Bras-du-Nord, Canada.
“This series is about some inspiring girls who crossed my way. They are artist, travelers, self-contractor. But most of all they are young, they are free and today´s generation. And I always shot in special environments that give a poetical vision to the sets.”
Lila, mystical amethyst.
I am tapping on my keyboard while scrolling through some pictures. I weight my words, I take them, twist them, mix them, the experience is uneasy. I want to transcribe the exactitude of my feelings when I think of her. I don’t want to make mistakes, like touching a thin crystal ball without breaking it. I am talking about a crystal ball but wanting to talk about magic. You know, this kind of sphere from which a thick smoke emanates when it shatters into a thousand pieces. Lila has something mystical in her, something celestial I believe, an obscure force, a deep green stare in which you could dive in without restrain, a soft and brutal expression at once, all without a filter.
Similar to amethyst, coated with a thick layer of stone that if you break apart you’ll discover a heart going from a bright see-through purple to very obscure and opaque tones. Reading her story like reading the crystals of this stone opened book. Sitting there, cross-legged under a cloudless sky with the starts as her guides; these are bits of her path that I liked to tell you about here.
We have met in Canada, and I had this feeling we could’ve met anywhere else. Born in France, out of a beautiful miscegenation of cultures of both a Mexican mother and a French father. She will grow up there till her teens and then it will be back and forth trips to Mexico. At an age where you don’t necessarily decide of your circumstances and actions, where you are looking and not always finding yourself. Going out with boys and not savoring it and then realize that love and desire are elsewhere. Falling in love. Slipping. Trying to study to change. Over and over again. Trying things out, going, here and there, rambling. Then sinking. Four years later, she will meet the one that would give her the taste of other desires, better horizons, and then move to Montreal.
I didn’t meet Lila in her wild years, I met her here, at twenty-six years passed. It makes me happy because as I listen to her story I have the feeling to have seen her grow. Today, sweet contemporary shaman, listener of nature, of her peers and of herself. I met a strong woman who can inspire so many others, a woman who regrets nothing, happy today, confident and appeased. Deeply appeased. Amethyst Velvet. Lila the voluptuous, the beautiful stone with the weaned crystals of excesses and youthful drunkenness. The sweet Lila, the thick smoke safe to cross to discover the simple and ephemeral beauty of a starry evening.
Lila, Vallée-Bras-du-Nord, Canada
Text and pictures by Pauline Gallot
all parts of ELLES
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