ARIANNE
CLÉMENT
Lives and works in Canada.
The Art of Aging
The Art of Aging is a photo story of sensuality in women aged 70 and over. This project owes its existence to a revelation Arianne Clément experienced when she encountered Marie-Berthe, a young 102-year-old beauty whose ease and casualness in front of the lens was as impressive as it was inspiring. Clément was immediately taken with the old woman and the way she totally – almost unconsciously – felt beautiful and attractive and wasn’t afraid to show it off.
What if beauty couldn’t be reduced to an idealized aesthetic? What if, beyond the traces left by the passage of time on our features, beauty could be something less tangible but more lasting? This vision is far removed from learned ideas and clichés commonly associated with beauty. It doesn’t have to be something that we are born with or without and neither does it have to be the privilege of youth. Beauty has to be much more and, hopefully much better, than this. It is a way of being. Something to cultivate, teach and learn from, and something that each of the eight women (and two men) that reveal themselves in this project are marvelous examples of. As models, they have been a great inspiration to Clément and it’s her hope that these portraits will transmit their anarchist spirit and maybe also a precious lesson on the venerable art of aging.
The elders whose intimacy is revealed and celebrated here share with Clément a notion of beauty and sensuality that inspires a state of grace. Lightness and depth are here side by side in a provocative but thoroughly pleasurable display. Borrowing from the conventions of Nude and Boudoir photography, the pictures show Clément’s fascination with the human body and its great potential for emotional expression. These pictures also aim to illustrate her irritation with the very conformist way people view beauty and with the pervasive presence of certain imagery that subdue many women into body shaming and a fear of getting old.
