ABOUT​

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1969 in Strasbourg.

Lives and works between Paris, Hong Kong and Kinshasa.

A self-taught photographer, Patrick Willocq had a midlife rebirth. It was a return trip to Congo (where he grew up) in 2009 that made him quit the professional activities he had been carrying out for twenty years in Asia, in order to devote himself fully to photography, a thirty-year commitment.

Patrick draws on his imagination the art of metamorphosing reality with poignant scenes in the image of his deep humanist convictions. With the subject entirely part of his creative process, he practices an aesthetic never devoid of ethics. In all his carefully composed performative stagings, entirely constructed in situ rather than created on Photoshop, he sends messages that pass through a participatory theatricality. His artistic practice is a hybrid between ethnology, sociology, performance, installation, video and photography.

Since 2012, he has been nominated for or chosen as a finalist or winner of multiple prestigious international awards, including SFR Jeunes Talents de Paris Photo 2012, Prix Photo de l’Agence Française de Développement 2012, Prix Découverte des Rencontres d’Arles 2014, Prix Coup de Coeur HSBC pour la Photographie 2016, Sony World Photography Awards 2016, Prix Niepce 2017, Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2014 and 2017.

His works have been exhibited at Paris Photo, AIPAD New York, Context Art Miami, Photo Basel, Joburg Art Fair, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. It has also been featured in numerous TV broadcasts and publications, including CNN Amanpour, Arte, France 5, TV5 Monde, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Stern, Polka, Le Monde and Paris Match.

Patrick is co-author, with director Florent de La Tullaye, of a 52-minute documentary film, Le Chant des Walés, broadcast on the television channel France 5 with a preview at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris at the end of 2016.

Patrick is represented by the galleries Clelia Belgrado Vision Quest in Genoa, Project 2.0 in La Haye, and Clémentine de la Feronnière in Paris.

2013

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS

2017

• Nominated Prix Niepce

• Finalist Leica Oskar Barnack Award

2016

• Finalist Photolucida Critical Mass

• Nominated to Prix Pictet

• Professional shortlist in Portraiture at the Sony World Photography Awards

• Prix Coup de Cœur HSBC pour la photographie

• 1st Place Exhibitor's Choice Award, CENTER Santa Fé

• Winner “Dreams” The Center for Fine Art Photography

2015

• Winner GUP magazine anniversary competition

• Winner Grand Prix Fotofestiwal Lodz

2014

• Nominated to the Discovery Award Arles

• Nominated to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize

• Finalist Leica Oskar Barnack Award

• Winner La Bourse du Talent Portrait

• Winner POPCAP prize

• Finalist Renaissance Photography Prize

• Finalist Lens Culture New Talent Award

• BJP the Ones to Watch in 2014

2013

• Finalist Lens Culture Exposure Award

• Winner International Photographer Competition, Viewpoint Gallery, Canada

2012

• Winner of the best AFD photo reportage

• Winner SFR Jeunes Talents Paris Photo

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

• Vanity Fair, Italy

• Internazionale, Italy

• Vrij, The Netherlands

• Snoeck, Belgium

• Foam Magazine, The Netherlands

• ArtNet News, USA

• Le Soir, Switzerland

• Zoom, Italy

• Il Fotografo, Italy

• Regardez voir, France Inter Radio, France

2018

2017

• ARTE Journal

• France 3 Journal

• Polka Magazine #39

• Libération

• El Pais Semanal 

• Radio France Inter Babel Sur Seine

• Radio Nova

• ​Dienacht magazine, Germany

• Fotomen, China

• AFAR, USA 

• Causette, France

• NPCI, Korea

• Pasatiempo, USA

• UNESCO courier

2016

• Chaeg Korea

• Beaux Arts

• Polka

• Geo Magazine

• British Journal of Photography

• Jiemian China

• Feature Shoot 

• Roads and Kingdoms  ​​

• The New York Times Lens Blog 

• Design Indaba 

• CNN 

• The Guardian

• The Sunday Times (pdf)

• Reuters Thomson Foundation News 

• The Huffington Post USA 

• La Repubblica

2015

• Gup Magazine

• Il Fotografo

• Internazionale 

• AFAR USA

• La Stampa

• Lens Blog New York Times

• British Journal of Photography

• De Morgen

• VSD

• Another Africa

• Libération

• The New Yorker

• Marie Claire Spain

• Gente di Fotografia

• Paris Match

• DOC Magazine Poland

• Narrative.ly

• Afrique in visu

• L’Illustré

2014

• RFI

• Stern Germany

• 6 Mois

• Le Point

• Paris Match

• Huffington Post

• Images FNAC

• Arts Magazine

• Beaux Arts

• Photo

• Polka

• Leica LFI

• Marie Claire Italy

• Marie Claire Taiwan

• Marie Claire Hong Kong

• Marie Claire Korea

• Marie Claire Greece

• Marie Claire Roumania

• Marie Claire Czechoslovakia

• Gup Magazine

• Hot Shoe

• Emaho

• Muze

• Connaissance des arts Photo

• Photo

• Photo News DE

• Réponses Photo

• Korean Monthly magazine

2013

• Libération

• Réponses Photo

• TV5 Monde News March 7th

• Polka

• Radio RFI February 26th

• Radio Nova February 25th

• PDN

• Ouest France

BOOK

• Songs of the Walés – Publisher Kehrer Verlag

PUBLICATIONS

• HUTS – World Press Photo Japan

• The Documentary Impulse – Stuart Franklin, Phaidon Press

• Family Photography Now – Stephen McLaren, Thames and Hudson

• Fotopraxis mit Perspektive, Erfolgreiche Projekte und ihre Macher – Martina Mettner, Fotofeinkost Verlag

TV DOCUMENTARY

• Le Chant des Walés, a 52 mns TV documentary. Co-author with Director Florent de La Tullaye. Nynamor Films. With France Télévisions. Broadcasted 8 times in October 2016 and June 2018 on French TV FR5

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1969 in Strasbourg.

Lives and works in The Hague, The Netherlands

A self-taught photographer, Patrick Willocq had a midlife rebirth. It was a return trip to Congo (where he grew up) in 2009 that made him quit the professional activities he had been carrying out for twenty years in Asia, in order to devote himself fully to photography, a thirty-year commitment.

Best known for telling stories of people through surreal performative images produced in collaboration with them, Patrick draws on his imagination the art of metamorphosing reality with poignant scenes in the image of his deep humanist convictions. With the subject entirely part of his creative process, he practices an aesthetic never devoid of ethics. In all his carefully composed performative stagings, entirely constructed in situ rather than created on Photoshop, he sends messages that pass through a participatory theatricality. His artistic practice is a hybrid between ethnology, sociology, performance, installation, video and photography.

Since 2012, he has been nominated for or chosen as a finalist or winner of multiple prestigious international awards, including SFR Jeunes Talents de Paris Photo 2012, Prix Photo de l’Agence Française de Développement 2012, Prix Découverte des Rencontres d’Arles 2014, Prix Coup de Coeur HSBC pour la Photographie 2016, Sony World Photography Awards 2016, Prix Niepce 2017, Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2014 and 2017.

His works have been exhibited at Paris Photo, AIPAD New York, Context Art Miami, Photo Basel, Joburg Art Fair, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. It has also been featured in numerous TV broadcasts and publications, including CNN Amanpour, Arte, France 5, TV5 Monde, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Stern, Polka, Le Monde and Paris Match.

Patrick is co-author, with director Florent de La Tullaye, of a 52-minute documentary film, Le Chant des Walés, broadcast on the television channel France 5 with a preview at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris at the end of 2016.

For contacts and representation, please go to Contact page.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018

• Foundation Manuel Rivera Ortiz, Arles, France

• PhEST International Art and Photography Festival, Monopoli, Italy

• Gallery Vision Quest, Genoa, Italy

2019

• Museum of Photography, Charleroi, Belgium

• Jungle exhibition, Manga, DR Congo

2017

• The Copper House Gallery, Dublin, Photo Ireland

• Art500, Chateau de Saint-Martory, France

• Project 2.0 / Gallery, The Hague, The Netherlands

• AKAA African At Fair, Gallery Vision Quest, Paris, France

• UN headquarters in New York, USA

• International Photography Festival Beijing, China  

• Guernsey Photography Festival, Guernsey  

• Lagos Photo Festival, Nigeria  

• Institut Français de Bamako, Mali  

• Castello d’Albertis, Museo delle Culture Del Mondo, Genova, Italy

• Institut Français de Kinshasa, DR Congo

• Itinéraires des Photographes Voyageurs, Bordeaux, France

2016

• Lagos Photo Festival, Nigeria

• PhotoLux Festival, Lucca, Italy

• Vision Quest Gallery, Genova, Italy

• Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris, France

• Post Tenebras Lux, Baux de Provence, France

• Fotofestiwal, Lodz, Poland

• Format International Photography Festival, Derby, UK

• Festival des Peuples Autochtones, Kinshasa, DR Congo

2015

2014

• Lagos Photo, Nigeria

• Rétine Marseille, France

• Encontros da Imagen, Braga, Portugal

• Les Rencontres d’Arles, France

• Ozwald Boateng, London, UK

• Flash Forward, Boston, USA

• MAC, Créteil, France

2013

• Photo OFF, Paris, France

• Angkor Wat Photo, Angkor, Cambodia

• Lagos Photo, Nigeria

• Agence Française de Développement, Paris, France

• Institut Français de Kinshasa, DR Congo

• FEPN, Arles, France

• Les Photographes Voyageurs, Bordeaux, France

• Circulation(s), Paris, France

2013

• Afropolitan, BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium

• Photo London, Gallery Vision Quest, UK

• AKAA African At Fair, Gallery Vision Quest, Paris, France (November)

2019

AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS

2018

• Nominated to Prix Pictet

• Longlist Kraszna-Krausz Book Award

2017

• Nominated to Prix Niepce

• Finalist Leica Oskar Barnack Award

2016

• Finalist Photolucida Critical Mass

• Nominated to Prix Pictet

• Professional shortlist in Portraiture at the Sony World Photography Awards

• Prix Coup de Cœur HSBC pour la photographie

• 1st Place Exhibitor's Choice Award, CENTER Santa Fé

• Winner “Dreams” The Center for Fine Art Photography

2015

• Winner GUP magazine anniversary competition

• Winner Grand Prix Fotofestiwal Lodz

2014

• Nominated to the Discovery Award Arles

• Nominated to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize

• Finalist Leica Oskar Barnack Award

• Winner La Bourse du Talent Portrait

• Winner POPCAP prize

• Finalist Renaissance Photography Prize

• Finalist Lens Culture New Talent Award

• BJP the Ones to Watch in 2014

2013

• Finalist Lens Culture Exposure Award

• Winner International Photographer Competition, Viewpoint Gallery, Canada

2012

• Winner of the best AFD photo reportage

• Winner SFR Jeunes Talents Paris Photo

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

2019

• Connaissance des Arts, France

• ELLE Deco, France

• The Art Newspaper, France 

• Arts in the City, Belgium 

• Tijd, Belgium

• Le Soir, Belgium 

• LM Magazine, Belgium

• La Libre.be, Belgium

• Flux New, Belgium 

• RTBF, Belgium 

• UNESCO courier

• Vanity Fair, Italy

• Internazionale, Italy

• Vrij, The Netherlands

• Snoeck, Belgium

• Foam Magazine, The Netherlands

• ArtNet News, USA

• Le Soir, Switzerland

• Zoom, Italy

• Il Fotografo, Italy

• Regardez voir, France Inter Radio, France

2018

2017

• ARTE Journal

• France 3 Journal

• Polka Magazine #39

• Libération

• El Pais Semanal 

• Radio France Inter Babel Sur Seine

• Radio Nova

• ​Dienacht magazine, Germany

• Fotomen, China

• AFAR, USA 

• Causette, France

• NPCI, Korea

• Pasatiempo, USA

• UNESCO courier

2016

• Chaeg Korea

• Beaux Arts

• Polka

• Geo Magazine

• British Journal of Photography

• Jiemian China

• Feature Shoot 

• Roads and Kingdoms  ​​

• The New York Times Lens Blog 

• Design Indaba 

• CNN 

• The Guardian

• The Sunday Times (pdf)

• Reuters Thomson Foundation News 

• The Huffington Post USA 

• La Repubblica

2015

• Gup Magazine

• Il Fotografo

• Internazionale 

• AFAR USA

• La Stampa

• Lens Blog New York Times

• British Journal of Photography

• De Morgen

• VSD

• Another Africa

• Libération

• The New Yorker

• Marie Claire Spain

• Gente di Fotografia

• Paris Match

• DOC Magazine Poland

• Narrative.ly

• Afrique in visu

• L’Illustré

2014

• RFI

• Stern Germany

• 6 Mois

• Le Point

• Paris Match

• Huffington Post

• Images FNAC

• Arts Magazine

• Beaux Arts

• Photo

• Polka

• Leica LFI

• Marie Claire Italy

• Marie Claire Taiwan

• Marie Claire Hong Kong

• Marie Claire Korea

• Marie Claire Greece

• Marie Claire Roumania

• Marie Claire Czechoslovakia

• Gup Magazine

• Hot Shoe

• Emaho

• Muze

• Connaissance des arts Photo

• Photo

• Photo News DE

• Réponses Photo

• Korean Monthly magazine

2013

• Libération

• Réponses Photo

• TV5 Monde News March 7th

• Polka

• Radio RFI February 26th

• Radio Nova February 25th

• PDN

• Ouest France

BOOK

• Songs of the Walés – Publisher Kehrer Verlag

PUBLICATIONS

• HUTS – World Press Photo Japan

• The Documentary Impulse – Stuart Franklin, Phaidon Press

• Family Photography Now – Stephen McLaren, Thames and Hudson

• Fotopraxis mit Perspektive, Erfolgreiche Projekte und ihre Macher – Martina Mettner, Fotofeinkost Verlag

TV DOCUMENTARY

• Le Chant des Walés, a 52 mns TV documentary. Co-author with Director Florent de La Tullaye. Nynamor Films. With France Télévisions. Broadcasted 8 times in October 2016 and June 2018 on French TV FR5