These old tractors have been around since the 1930’s in the region of Auvergne. Each summer, they would work with the harvesting machines in order to collect the wheat: a rite that brought together land, machines and men. This farm equipment from the past is now at rest in the grange of a barn in the village of Saint-Martin-Cantalès, in the Cantal region.
Céline Gaille now lives in Paris. Her studies in art history and modern literature, along with her professional experiences at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jerôme de Noirmont’s contemporary art gallery, and finally at Phaidon (publisher of art and photography books), have all left a strong impression on her vision. During the last ten years, she has worked closely with an array of photographers including Roy DeCarava, Philip Jones Griffith, Martin Parr, Lise Sarfati, Nan Goldin, René Burri and Eugene Richards.
In 2005, her desire for photography began to take shape in Rome, where she had lived for a year. This new direction would drive her to create a unique personal visual panorama.
With double origins both in the city and in the countryside, through discoveries via travels and the playful combination of foreign languages, as well as an evolution closer to her fundamentals and the unknown – all of these experiences triggered in her the desire to learn visual arts, metaphors and connections, outside of the walls and thus in a constant spirit of freedom.
Now and always, there is the tireless observation of the subjects – them, you, us – in their activity or in their laziness, in their extravagance or in their banalities, in public or in private, prepared to meet the others, with a camera in her hand.
