Icône ou le pouvoir de soi (2024)

Shown in September 2024 at the Orsay crypt as part of the group exhibition Géographie(s) du Sacré, “Icône ou le pouvoir de soi” (Icon, or the Power of the Self) brings together five painted faces whose titles read like sentences: Iel peut vivre aussi longtemps qu’il veut, Éternel féminin, Et je reprends encore le monde, Iel était si belle que tu n’aurais pas osé l’aimer, Elle ne parle que la langue de son âme.

The face becomes an icon: not an image to be worshipped, but a presence that looks back at us and asserts its power over itself. Continuing Peau d’âne, Ana Ruiz pursues her cartography of intimacy: every gaze, every colour tells a story of identity and freedom.