Femmes Coupees 

Katrien De Blauwer’s "Femmes Coupées" presents a fragmented female figure constructed from cut and reassembled photographs. The stark contrast of the black and white imagery against the neutral background of the paper evokes a sense of nostalgic melancholy. The artist's choice to dissect and reconfigure the image disrupts the conventional representation of the female form. Each section—the upper torso, a profile, and a section of hair—functions as a signifier, yet the absence of a complete, coherent image challenges the viewer to piece together a narrative, destabilizing fixed meanings. This approach to form is reminiscent of the cut-up techniques used by William Burroughs. De Blauwer invites us to question the stability of identity and the subjective nature of perception. The deliberate act of cutting and pasting transforms the photograph from a mere representation into a field of semiotic possibilities, where the meaning is not fixed but actively constructed by the viewer.