These portraits were painted after the famous photographs by Marc Garanger, taken during the Algerian War in regroupment camps. The purpose of these photographs was to create identity cards that allowed the French army to control the movements of the population. The women, forced to lower their veils before the camera, experienced these sessions as a violation of their intimacy. These photographs bear witness to the war of independence.

I chose to work from these images above all because they moved me. Because they speak of the women of my country, women with whom I identify. Through my paintings, I wanted to pay tribute to them.

My intention is not to denounce the humiliations these women endured. My intention is to move beyond the role of victim by reappropriating these images. I wanted to show the beauty of these women, to restore their dignity, and to say that despite this forced unveiling, these women are princesses.

I would like to quote a sentence by Hannah Arendt from Responsibility and Judgment:

“Thinking and remembering are the human way of striking roots, of taking one’s place in the world into which we all arrive as strangers.”