Lisa Sartorio
Les mutantes (2021)
Lisa Sartorio
In this series Lisa Sartorio adopts digital portraits of women whose faces have been disfigured by acid attacks, then performs a sculptural intervention cutting in slices the portions of photographs where the scars are located, and weaving them together with pictures of flowers to restore the surface of the print.
Lisa Sartorio, Prunus Triloba (2021)
Lisa Sartorio, detail of Gysophila Panicula (2021) ©Anne-Fréderique Fer
Through a process of defiguration of the original image by means of slicing in stripes, and refiguration by interweaving with different images, Lisa Sartorio’s operates a sort of reconstructive surgery of the women’ features whose aim is not to restore their physical appearance, but rather a wish to rebuild the sense of femininity stolen by the men who attacked them.
This intention is highlighted by the association with flowers as symbols of femininity and the practice of textile making, historically associated with women labor. The meticulous process of refiguration of the surface of the image also wishes to mimic the process of reconstruction of dignity and sense of self the victims went through in the aftermath of those violent aggressions.
Each portrait of this series is named after the the flower woven within the scars symbolically offering each victim the possibility to claim a new identity.
︎ See this work on Lisa Sartorio’s gallery website