The Azure Of Your Veins The Crimson Of My Blood

Courtesy Knust Kunz Gallery Editions

Born in Brest (FR), Ann Ray is an artist who expresses herself through various media: photography, film, works on canvas, oil painting and writing.

She lives and works between Paris and Brittany (FR). Her work in photography and film spans nearly 30 years. Since 1995, she has created numerous portraits, including many of artists, and has worked notably as a correspondent for The British Times (1998– 2012), for the Paris Opera (since 2004), for the Metropolitan Opera in New York (2008– 2017), and for numerous magazines. Her images are published and exhibited worldwide (particularly in Tokyo, Paris, London and the USA). A lesser-known aspect of her work explores the fleeting, the interstitial, ephemeral illuminations, appearances and disappearances, and all forms of fragility – from the human to the universe. Ray still favours film photography in his personal work, or when collaborating with major artists, most recently with principal dancer Hugo Marchand at the Villa Medici (2026), or with the extraordinary violinist Daniel Lozakovich (2024) – who used his film photographs for his latest album, ‘Lost to the World’.

The works in this current exhibition feature, in particular, dancers such as Alice Renavand, Adam Russell-Jones, Nicolas Le Riche, and Sylvie Guillem, who have enjoyed outstanding success at the Paris Opera, the Stuttgart Ballet, and on many other international stages, and who are among the most prominent figures in international ballet. The exhibition also includes photographs that reflect the long-standing, close friendship between Alexander McQueen and Ann Ray.

Her compositions remained as drawings in her sketchbooks for a long time.