Normand Rajotte – Biography
Normand Rajotte lives and works in Montreal and the Eastearn Towships, Quebec, Canada. A self-taught photographer, his practice began in the social documentary genre and its direct approach would endure throughout his practice thereafter. In 1978, Éditions Ovo published an essay, Transcanadienne Sortie 109, on the daily life of a working-class city—his own, Drummondville— of which he is co-author. This project was among the rare publications of its sort for the time.
In the early 1980s, through landscape photography, he adopted a more introspective approach focused on self-awareness and a renewed relationship to nature. From this, several series were developed. They would be the focus of several exhibitions, and many excerpts of these works later went on to be included in a book titled Marcher sa trace (Walking in my foot prints), published in 2004 by Éditions Les 400 coups (Montreal). The series, Comme un murmure (Like a whisper) (2004-2011), presented notably at Mois de la photo de Montréal 2011 and published by Editions Kehrer in 2016 (Heildelberg). This was followed by the series Le chantier (2010-2014) and Carcasse (2015-2017). The latter was presented in the form of a short film (Terrestres) in 2019 and a book co-published in 2022 by Éditions Escuminac (Quebec) and Diaphane éditions (France).
Since 1997 Rajotte’s photographic project has persistently focused on Lot no126, a single area of forest at the foot of Mont Mégantic in the Eastern Townships. A new series is currently in progress.
His work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, since the late 1970s. His works appear in many private and public collections in Quebec and throughout Canada, including The Canadian Photography Institute, National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec (Quebec), and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Rajotte is also well represented in major corporate collections. (see cv)