Valérie Belin is presenting a new series of photographs titled Heroes. The series consists of eight portraits of young women wearing make-up in a style that is partly inspired by the codes of theatrical representation and mime.

On the faces, the graphic and pictorial motifs of the make-up resonate with the narrative and chromatic elements of the background. These visual correspondences make the characters the protagonist of the scene around them. They become the hero in the manner of a movie star depicted on a promotional poster for a film. But these “headliners” also tell us something else: through the play of patterns and colours, these faces painted like pictures oscillate between the 3D incarnation of a physical, emotional person and the 2D expression of a fictional character. By “over-signifying” the face, these motifs and colours that turn it into a painting also reveal its artificiality and mask-like nature.