As the 2024 Summer Olympics ceremony kicks off and we wait with bated breath to see what this year’s competition holds, some of the athletes themselves are proud to present the results of their own creative output in an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo. On view for the duration of the games (August 11), the Olympian Artists Programme exhibition includes artwork by seven international athletes, including French fencing champion Enzo Lefort’s stylized portraits of his national Olympian and Paralympian teammates.
Lefort, a three-time Olympic fencer from French Guiana whose team medaled gold and silver in Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro respectively, picked up the camera in 2017 after connecting with various photographers throughout his sports career. Turning the lens back on his colleagues across all sports disciplines, Lefort is showing a series titled Olympic Faces: One French Team — a testament to the diversity of athletes united in the goal to win gold for their country.
The photographer’s latest series is an expansion of an earlier project, a photo book called Behind the Mask (2020) that he worked on amid the postponement of the 2020 Summer Olympics due to the coronavirus pandemic, consisting of portraits and detail shots of his fencing teammates. With an eye for the melding of cultures and geographic origins that have rounded out his point of view, Lefort has said that he “wouldn’t be the man [he is] now without experiencing this diversity.”
In addition to portraiture, the athlete also captures candid, architectural, and landscape scenes, and has also worked on visuals for social media and marketing campaigns for his partner’s Kitesy Martin jewelry and accessories brand.
“Photography helps me to express my creative side outside fencing,” Lefort said.
See more images from Olympic Faces: One French Team below.
