Lucile Boiron, Mise en Pieces, 2021

Mise en Pièces combines self-portraits of the artist with still lifes and images taken during cosmetic surgery. We are confronted with fragmentary remains—objects of a luminous metamorphosis, supercharged by effects of contrast and brilliance. The photographer cuts, grabs, lifts and assembles. The “tearing apart” resembles a distortion of reality. We are all made of flesh, nerves, guts, bones and cartilages. But where descriptive monstrosity darkens, Lucile Boiron transfigures reality. By mastering the light, she presents the materials from their own point of view. To those who would see only an aesthetic play on the body or an ironic commentary on modernity, Lucile Boiron challenges to oppose the desire to grasp images and materials independent of their cultural meanings.