BIO

An unusual path:
As a child, Patricia Méaille felt invisible. Everything around her was sad, ugly, hard to endure... One day when she was just 11 years old, she received a wonderful gift: her first camera. That's when she decided to create and show a world that would make her feel better. Her fate was determined.
Born in 1963 in a very modest family, Patricia Méaille grew up far away from art galleries, but her empathy for the world around her and her search for beauty in even the ugliest places marked her approach and shaped her outlook. She began her photographic career at 18 years old as a photographer of hotels and beach clubs. This first experience showed her the way in which she must travel. Persevering, she went on to perfect her skills at the Créart school with Pierre Baud and his photographer, Luke, who, after teaching pure technique and theory, taught Patricia the mastery of light, framing and the composition of a successful photo...
Patricia Méaille loves humans too much to stay locked in a studio... That's why she continues to come back to her hometown on the banks of the Loire, to find and discover, to make herself visible.
A mode of expression like no other:
Since words escape her in her contemplation of the world, Patricia Méaille chose from the outset to express her sentiments and feelings through images. Photography is her mode of expression. Images, beautiful images, allowed Patricia to leave her "natural habitat" that was choking and confining her, and to go and meet others while discovering herself. She speaks with images, because at home she didn't have the right to speak...
When a situation, a moment in the day, a place, provokes in her a strong emotional state, only the image allows her to express it. Words continue to elude. The photo that's left, speaks.
"I became a photographer because pictures made my life more wonderful. It allowed me - in a world where I felt invisible and unheard - to express my feelings, to uncover hidden things, to reveal beauty, to lay bare emotions..." P Méaille
Revealing the Invisible
In her artistic approach, particular words return as a leitmotif: emotions, beauty, rendering the invisible visible, presence and absence, hope and inner peace ...
For Patricia Méaille, it's necessary to make beautiful images, even if a place is hideous, and to try and capture the beauty in every shot (see "Forgotten Interior"). In this series, the presence of people, like so many of the characters haunting the photos, are rendered present through everyday objects, their daily life and living spaces… The presence of "the invisible" and of beauty are still emphasized, exposed by the light. Each photo and addressed theme is influenced by the mood of the moment. Her current approach, still rooted in observation and transition, is drawn towards the in-between spaces that fascinate us, places of passage, or of moving from one state to another… The island of Robinson, the ivory tower or Thebaid, empty or alive , a place that's both closed and open, isolated and yet linked with the rest of the world... An intermediate place between the shore and the middle of the river, which never stops to look. Live hidden away in order to live happily? Or risk getting caught up in a fickle and uncaring world? All her questions are addressed by her current work, reflecting her thirst for encounters and emotions.
Style, masters:
From her early pictures, Patricia Méaille was influenced by her own experience. She pays strong attention to the human being. In this, she moves closer to being a humanist photographer. The artists who have had the most influence on her photographic vision are Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Reza Jonas Bendicksen, Martin Parr and Steve McCurry.
It is thanks to Master Ronis that Patricia Méaille found confidence in herself and revealed it to others.
"Thank you Patricia for this visit which, in addition to the pleasure it gave me to get to know you, revealed to me your view of  varied subjects, enriched by a lively and subtle sensibility. With friendship. Willy RONIS "    
Coming from a  modest background, for a long time long Patricia Méaille had no confidence in herself and her abilities. These are meetings with exceptional people who allowed her to get out from the shadows, come forward and take off... The first to encourage her, Cavanna (founder of Charlie Hebdo), seduced by her work and personality, prefaces her books and exhibitions ... Wolinski said of her portrait: "It's a Rembrandt!". And Anna Gavalda encouraged her to persevere and talk about her pictures as an "invitation to happiness."
  "I went then, as if magnetized, towards the beauty, towards the light ..." P. Méaille