In ‘Face-à-Face’ the French artist Bénédicte Pontet bears witness to a profoundly human experience – her own battle with cancer. In a series of harrowing yet enlightening self-portraits, Pontet paints herself in the midst of her great medical struggle, complete with IV drips and medical gowns, and intersperses the series with more quotidian images of herself listening to music or reading a magazine. Despite the challenging theme, the exhibition is an ode to survival, its bright colours allowing Pontet to affirm her femininity in the face of the brutality of hospital life.
TRANSLATION: MARIA THOMAS