On the occasion of her third solo exhibition at the gallery, in camera is highlighting Revelation, the latest series by Iranian-Austrian artist Sissi Farassat, in which she releases fragments of selected images. Within the exhibition, these partially concealed prints form an ensemble in which the image reveals itself through omissions. At the heart of Sissi Farassat’s work lies an essential gesture: choosing what she shows—and what she holds back.
« For those who know Sissi Farassat’s work, Revelation is, above all, a surprise. A pioneer of interventions on her photographic prints—bead embroidery and many other ways of augmenting the image through manual treatment of its surface—Sissi Farassat proposes here the reverse method. The starting image is found, then covered over. We see it only in fragments; we have to guess it. The desired object is offered only through concealment. It is a matter of bodies, faces, and seduction. What we perceive recalls a time when the attributes of beauty were defined by the codes of cinema and magazines; one still finds the slightly old-fashioned elegance of Hollywood women and staged kisses.
But, in truth, Revelation is also perfectly faithful to Sissi Farassat’s approach. By using vernacular photographs over which she embroiders or weaves (Stitch, Pin Up, Contactsheet…), she continues a contemporary practice of upcycling photographs. Here, the distinctive feature comes above all from the fact that covering the image is achieved through cropping—or, more precisely, through the play of the mask: showing the image follows a strategy of blinding. What we do not see takes on a dominant role. What is primarily celebrated here is the off-screen space as an area both real and imaginary. In this game, the artist brings forth subsets of the image—that is, as in mathematics, sets included within a set—a structure at once divided and organically linked. (…) Through this gesture, Sissi Farassat achieves a poetry that combines materiality and disappearance. Revelation is also a device that fragments the gaze, a visual mechanism of desire. »
Excerpt from La Nudité des images, Michel Poivert
Sissi Farassat was born in Tehran in 1969, where she spent part of her childhood before moving to Vienna in 1978.
A graduate of the International Summer Academy and the School of Fine Art in Vienna, she received a study grant to create the photographic series Self Portrait Paris. Her life shapes her creations, between Persian and Western culture. The artist transforms everyday objects into fanciful symbols of identity, embellishing her photographs with glitter and flashy, colorful materials.
Unlike other forms of retouched photography (such as collage and hand-colored or hand-painted photographs), sewing and embroidery are techniques in which the surface of the image is perforated. These artisanal gestures constitute a voodoo practice—gentle and contemplative—that transforms the surface of the image by splitting it into countless small particles, and by penetrating the back of the photograph as well.
In intimate bedrooms or “ordinary” interiors, Sissi Farassat creates self-portraits and portraits of friends or family members. Embroidering a photograph can take days, even weeks, and leads the artist to confront her photographed subjects personally through this slow and patient manual work.
For Revelation, Sissi Farassat cuts mats that reveal fragments of images—photographs of anonymous people collected at flea markets across Europe. At the heart of this series is an essential gesture: choosing what the artist shows and what she holds back.
Sissi Farassat : Revelation
February 12 – March 21, 2026
in camera galerie
21 rue Las Cases
75007 Paris
du mardi au samedi de 14h à 19h
www.incamera.fr
