Photos of the Week - Free Women: Chrysalises: Sculptures Under Tension - When tights shape the artistic nude and turn the body into pure poetic matter.

Updated on 9 May 2026

Here we are in the second week of our cycle, the one where we leave the tame shores for something bolder. It is time for the Free Women series. It is a creative space I particularly love because it lets me work the body in a sculptural and symbolic way. Here, the nude becomes graphic, carrying meaning and strength. It is another facet of my work, more direct, which I am delighted to share with you today..

Chrysalises: Sculptures Under Tension

When tights shape the artistic nude

and turn the body into pure poetic matter.

Free Women: Chrysalises: Sculptures Under Tension - When tights shape the artistic nude and turn the body into pure poetic matter.

This series was born from a purely technical intuition that quickly turned into a deep symbolic quest. I was looking for a way to model light differently, to break the immediate sharpness of the skin in order to reach for mass, volume, the structural tension of forms. It was by wrapping my models entirely in an immense opaque pair of tights, stretched to the limits of its resistance, that the click happened: a nude wrapped in large tights.

Under the effect of stretching, this fabric became a genuine sculpting tool. It does not hide, it redefines. It acts as an organic diffuser: the light glides over the taut mesh, softens the curves and blurs overly literal anatomical details to leave room only for the power of the lines. We touch here on the rawest dreaminess.

On set, the exercise demanded absolute trust and mutual listening. Far from being hindered, the models seized this textile constraint to inhabit the space with rare strength. The fabric becomes a protective cocoon, a magnificent chrysalis. Through the lens, we witness the imminent birth of a being in full metamorphosis. The historical echo of the ‘wet drapery’ of ancient sculpture is striking, but it is revisited here through a resolutely modern, graphic approach to the artistic nude.

This textured work definitively draws the gaze away from any attempt at objectification. The body is not displayed, it is contained, magnified by the effort of the material fighting against shadow. In my logbook, I keep the memory of those moments of intense silence in the studio, where the mere rustle of nylon under the spotlights dictated the rhythm of the shoot. This exploration of the art of the nude asserts itself as an attempt to fuse human intimacy and geometric abstraction.

To see this week’s exhibitions or all of my work, here are the options:

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This graphic exploration is over for this week, but the month is far from finished. In seven days, we will slip into something more muted and more tactile. Get ready for the Embodied Intimacies series, where we will set the staging aside to move closer to the skin and the senses. See you next week!

Yohann

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