Logo blanc de l'Hôtel Albert 1er, un hôtel de choix à Toulouse

Humanity(s): an exploration of the world through its faces

For the second year in a row, Humanité(s) will be held at the Albert 1er Hotel in Toulouse. In 2021, the exhibition had highlighted the works of the sculptor Jean-Paul Mestres and the portrait painter Stéphanie Ledoux. The Toulouse artist returns this year, alongside photographer Kares Le Roy.

The works of these two artists echo each other: they explore the world, from Asia to the Middle East, by showing the faces of its inhabitants. The exhibition thus confronts two artists who take up the same subject, treated with two different approaches: painting and photography.

Stéphanie Ledoux
Kares Le Roy

Fascinated by distant cultures, these two artists plunge us into the heart of the indigenous populations of the Asian continent, from the depths of ancestral China to the Middle East, via India and Iran. The same subject, two art forms, several approaches…

The same subject, two art forms

Stéphanie Ledoux from Toulouse has spent the last twenty years traveling the world. She finds inspiration in many countries and naturally in the ethnic groups she meets during her travels.

His painting retranscribes the emotion aroused by these moments of exchange. She moves with skill and subtlety from sketches taken on the spot to gigantic canvases created in the heat of her studio.

Whatever the format, the looks are as intense as they are touching; his art is the reflection of a mastered sensitivity and the synthesis of a striking cultural face to face that questions the relationship between human beings.

On foot, on horseback, on motorcycle, in the back of a bus or in his vehicle, Kares Le Roy has crisscrossed the most isolated places and photographed some of the most unknown peoples of the East.

Today, after several years of almost obsessive work on Iran, Kares is gradually unveiling his photographic research dedicated to this ancient empire and presents a series of portraits and scenes of life as a tribute to his people.

Between poetry and mythology, the photographer draws with a very pictorial touch that is his own, a memorial picture of a culture that tends to dissolve in the globalized world of the 21st century.

A private place

Located in the heart of the city, the hotel has been run by a Toulouse family for four generations: a strong Toulouse roots that the Director, Emmanuel Hilaire, wishes to underline by welcoming two artists from the pink city. The time to put down your suitcases and let yourself be inspired by the soul of the works and the place…

Art is in the DNA of the Albert Premier Hotel. More than 50 years ago, the hotel already exhibited a work by the Toulouse artist JG Picard, which is still present in the hotel.

The spaces of the Albert 1er

The Hotel Albert 1er is proud to exhibit the work of these two artists in its spaces, which corresponds to the values of humanism, exchange and local anchoring of our establishment.

The exhibition spaces, the Nougaro and Guerlain rooms, are a stone’s throw from the Place du Capitole. These urban cocoons allow artists to present their works in a place with a history and a soul: they are indeed former artists’ studios!

The hotel offers these exhibition spaces for company seminars, ephemeral stores, photo shoots, training sessions… and regularly hosts art exhibitions

On the occasion of the exhibition, take part in our contest to try to win a night for two people with breakfast at the Hotel Albert 1er.