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The book *Painted Ladies*, signed and numbered in an edition of 800, consists of a series of portraits of women created in 2017, whose faces have been reworked: each bears the marks of a brush used for painting and applying makeup. The brushes and pigments evoke tribal painting; these images seem to be the result of initiation rites. With an absent gaze, each woman is distinguished by her pictorial style: the layering of strata imbues the image with a certain abstraction. In an obsessive desire to appropriate reality, Valérie Belin focuses her lens on the surface of beings and objects to better reveal their density and enigmatic nature. Her work in series, based on a subtle interplay of repetitions and variations, lends her images a minimalist rigor. Her photographs appear both flat and sculptural, two-dimensional and three-dimensional. This artist’s book is designed as a showcase: the delicate textures of the various Japanese papers allow the portraits of these eight women to emerge across the pages through shimmering effects, accompanied by an unpublished text by Éric Reinhardt that explores this idea of the multiplication of identity.
SIGNED AND NUMBERED (405/800)
Published by Editions Xavier Barral, 2019
23 cm 28 cm, 72 pages, hardcover with dust jacket
ISBN
The book *Painted Ladies*, signed and numbered in an edition of 800, consists of a series of portraits of women created in 2017, whose faces have been reworked: each bears the marks of a brush used for painting and applying makeup. The brushes and pigments evoke tribal painting; these images seem to be the result of initiation rites. With an absent gaze, each woman is distinguished by her pictorial style: the layering of strata imbues the image with a certain abstraction. In an obsessive desire to appropriate reality, Valérie Belin focuses her lens on the surface of beings and objects to better reveal their density and enigmatic nature. Her work in series, based on a subtle interplay of repetitions and variations, lends her images a minimalist rigor. Her photographs appear both flat and sculptural, two-dimensional and three-dimensional. This artist’s book is designed as a showcase: the delicate textures of the various Japanese papers allow the portraits of these eight women to emerge across the pages through shimmering effects, accompanied by an unpublished text by Éric Reinhardt that explores this idea of the multiplication of identity.
SIGNED AND NUMBERED (405/800)
Published by Editions Xavier Barral, 2019
23 cm 28 cm, 72 pages, hardcover with dust jacket
ISBN
