Persona
With Persona, I continue my exploration of identity and the tensions between the visible and the invisible, between what we show and what we are—a path first initiated with my series “Je est un autre” (2017). This new project questions the social mask, its density and its fragility. The social mask, that veil between the self and the world, is at once protection and constraint. It shapes us as much as it confines us, allowing us to navigate society while concealing our fractures and inner truths. Here, the mask does not merely reveal an absence; it also exposes the breach through which authenticity emerges. It is no longer just an envelope, but a territory where artifice and truth are constantly negotiated.
The white plaster masks, light and fragile, that I handcrafted myself, play a central role in this series. They materialize this interface between self and others, between the intimate self and the social self. Sometimes worn, sometimes set aside, sometimes floating in space, they both reveal and conceal, offering a subtle play on the construction and deconstruction of identity. Beyond the stillness of the mask, hands speak. They tell who we are, in another language. I seek to capture that suspended moment when artifice falters, when the mask becomes almost porous, allowing a fragment of truth to appear. It is an invitation to exposure—not to display, but to better understand what we keep silent.
The aesthetic dimension of the photographs is essential to this work. Bright colors sometimes contrast with the whiteness of the masks, heightening the dramatic intensity of the images. The importance of staging, the play of strange shadows and lights, and the dreamlike atmosphere that emerges situate this series within a lineage of surrealism. The influence of Man Ray can be felt in the use of the mask as an object of distancing and a tool for probing the unconscious.
This plastic and conceptual research resonates with contemporary questions of identity, self-representation, and social roles. At a time when images of the self are omnipresent, and the individual oscillates between performance and a quest for truth, Persona offers a reflection on what we choose to reveal and to conceal. This work thus engages in dialogue with current artistic practices that interrogate the construction of identity in the age of the digital and of perpetual spectacle.
Through this series, I invite the viewer into a disquieting face-to-face encounter with themselves, where the mask becomes both a boundary and a revealer.
