Elles et Ailes
24–26 March 2017
Duo exhibition
Galerie Artcreenvol, Strasbourg, France
In March 2017 (24–26), I participated in the duo exhibition “Elles et Ailes” at Galerie Artcreenvol.
The exhibition brought together two artists whose practices engaged with themes of identity, transformation, and the representation of women through drawing and painting.
For this occasion, I presented works from the series “Sipora”, including four portraits of women-birds, two bouquets of feathers, and four individual feather studies.
The Sipora series is developed in oil painting and reflects on the social construction of femininity and the ways in which women are often shaped, assigned roles, and transformed into objects within cultural and patriarchal systems. It questions how inherited structures, familial, social, and ideological, continue to define gendered identities through repetition and unexamined norms.
The series unfolds in three formal categories:
Women-Birds (Femme-Faisan, Femme-Flamant Rose, Femme-Cacatoès, Femme-Vautour)
These figures articulate femininity as a constructed condition rather than an innate state. The female body is positioned within a system of expectations, where “becoming a woman” is tied to conformity. Within this framework, femininity operates as both performance and constraint, oscillating between idealisation and objectification.
Bouquets of Feathers
These works suggest fragments of relationships, as if each encounter leaves behind a trace or remnant. The feather becomes a residual element, marking presence and absence simultaneously.
Individual Feathers
These portraits do not aim to represent individuals directly. Instead, they reflect mediated identities shaped through projection and surface. The subject is deliberately displaced, revealing how representation can obscure rather than reveal.
Across the series, the bird motif functions as a space of transformation. When the codes of imposed femininity are refused, the feathers shift, no longer ornaments or markers of control, but potential wings.