Tess Roby is a photographer and musician based in Montreal, Canada. Her photographs abstract her day- to-day movements; finding sublimity in the commonplace and delicately revealing its beauty. Roby graduated from the Concordia University Photography program in 2016, and has since completed two solo exhibitions, In View (2017), at Battat Contemporary in Montreal, and Like Water, A Window (2018), at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto as part of Contact Photography Festival. Her work has been published in VICE and by Pomegranate Press. In 2018, she released her debut album Beacon with Italians Do It Better.

Visit Tess Roby’s website to see more of her work.

Artist Website

Interview by Dana Stirling

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a musician and photographer based in Montreal, Quebec. Currently I’m enjoying the warm weather, swimming in lake water when I can, and making music from my home studio.

How did you choose photography as a medium, career and art form?

I gravitated towards photo very naturally at a young age. There were always cameras in the family and when I picked up my dad’s Olympus OM-1 in high school it just stuck. I carried that thing everywhere. That was also around the time when flickr was big and you could easily share your images with other photographers around the world and get feedback on your work. I used photography to explore different corners of my city and document my friendships. I’ve always kept diaries and taken photos, and the combination of writing and capturing my surroundings has given me a very good memory. The archive is constantly being added to. In that I find a lot of purpose to keep going.

I also know that you are a musician. Can you tell us a little about that as well? Do these two mediums even come together in your work?

The two mediums stay pretty separate, though they do come together when I make music videos or do album artwork. I’m very specific in my vision, and could never hand over the visual identity of my music. It’s such an important part of the work.

One of the reasons why I gravitated towards your work is because I always gravitate towards artists who take the time to look at objects and still lives arounds them. I find your work to be a whimsical and unexpected way of looking at the world around us. Tell us a little about your work practice and what do you mainly focus on in your work.

Thank you. So much of my practice comes intuitively to me. I love to travel, I love to walk, I love to explore cities and nature. Having my camera with me enhances those experiences. I’m sensitive to my surroundings and am always waiting for the perfect alignment of light and subject. So often I will stumble into one of my photos and think, did this happen just for me?

From what I could see your personal work mainly focuses on documenting still life, the urban life and nature but not so much portraits (your commissioned work seems to be more portrait oriented). In some of the portraits you do have it seems that the person is transformed and is more than a traditional portrait, as many times the person becomes an element in the work. Can you speak a little about that? Did I get it totally wrong? :-)

No, I totally get that! You’re right– in my personal work I don’t focus on people. If there are people in my personal work, their back is turned, or their eyes are closed, or they are caught in a very candid scene. I call it subtle portraiture. When I make commissioned portraits, I love to play with shape and negative space, the same way I would with a subject I encountered in the natural world. I find that makes for a unique portrait.

Your new book “Montreal” was just published by +KGP Books. Can you tell us about this project?

I was contacted by Kris Graves and his assistant, Tia Weiss (who helped curate and edit the book) last summer. They asked me to be part of the LOST series, where photographers pick a place that is special to them and produce a body of work based around it.

From a book aspect – can you talk a little about the process of editing the book? How did you end up with the final image selection and the editing and sequencing process in general?

I went through every single photograph I had ever taken in Montreal to make this book. I loved going through my archive, sifting through the different chapters in my Montreal life. I moved here when I was 17 and I’m 26 now– there’s a lot of growth in those years. Serious building blocks for the rest of one’s life.

I don’t share a lot of the photos I take in the hopes that they will eventually find my desired context for them; in a book or an exhibition. I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to make this book as it allowed me to share photos I had been sitting on for years, that hadn’t quite found their place yet. For someone who makes a lot of images while traveling, it was a great experience to turn my focus to the photos I had made at home. Putting these photographs together allowed me to create a dialogue between images that had been made years apart. I love how individual images can take on new meaning when placed next to other images.

What was the hardest part of creating this book? And what was the best part?

The hardest part was writing the text at the beginning of the book! I thought for so long about what to write– I didn’t want to write something about Montreal that spoke prematurely of my time here. I anticipate that I will live here for a long time, so it was important that the text speak to this specific moment in time.

I loved sequencing the images–using colour and mood to create a little narrative. When the book came out, I also loved seeing how the photos resonated with people. The image of the disco ball on the stove was one I never really given the time of day– but people loved it!

What inspires you as an artist?

The turning of chapters in my life. Hearing my friends music or seeing my friends art. Hearing someone speak with passion and excitement about what they do. Listening to euphoric music while driving with the windows down. Reading Patti Smith’s books. When I have the window seat on a plane or a train, and the light hits just right.

What do you consider to be a successful photograph? Do you have any photos you regret not photographing?

When subject, light and colour align and present you with something breathtaking. No regrets. I just wish I could photograph my dreams.

What do you think the hardest part of being an artist in today's art scene is? Any advice for fellow artists?

When I started taking pictures, there were no cell phone cameras and no Instagram. I took photos of everything on film. I truly wonder if my work would be different if this hadn’t been the case.

Instagram is also another thing… it’s an extremely useful tool for meeting other artists and connecting with people in the industry, but it has its downsides. I find many people don’t take my photographic work as seriously because they’ve only seen it online, instead of in a gallery or in a book. When exhibited, my images are printed large-scale which enhances so many details and allows the viewer to really enter into the image. I’ve had gallerists tell me they only gave my work a second glance because of my installation photographs– so one piece of advice would be to document your exhibitions and installations well. Those pics will come in handy.

My other advice would be to always photograph what you are naturally drawn to. It may sound obvious, but when I started studying Photography in university, many profs taught students to find a concept and then execute it. That is not the way that I work– I shoot and shoot, then collect photographs from my archive to build a series. For 3 years I wasn’t making good images in school. When I started to share what I called my “personal” work– that’s when I began to do well and began to be praised for my photos. Now some of my profs from university use me as a reference point for their students. Long story short, always trust your gut.

Finally, What are you working on these days? Any projects or news you would like to share?

I’m working on a lot of new music - if all goes according to plan, there should be new music out very soon! My first record, Beacon, was released in 2018, and the music on that record was written and recorded in 2015/2016. When my new music is released, I will truly feel like it represents my present self, which is someone I am truly excited to share with the world.

Artist Website

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