Description
The Ballerina
In an apocalyptic setting, Raphaëlle Schotsmans invites us to witness a metamorphosis: a ballerina moves, at times bending under the weight of an invisible hand, at times rising toward the sky.
The artist demands attentive looking — nothing reveals itself at first glance. Only by embracing the entire series can one perceive its full symbolic reach.
In that suspended moment, what was hidden becomes visible.
The ballerina evokes buried memories, childhood dreams — both Swan Lake myth and music box figurine — a character struggling to escape a role that confines her.
Her lightness is hindered by the rubble that covers the ground; she frees herself from what taints her purity, fighting invisible forces.
Are they outside her, or within? Do the fragments precede her or follow in her wake?
This duality between destruction and serenity emerges within the model’s own body, seeking to leave behind fear and darkness, clothed only in her ballet costume.
Beneath her apparent fragility lies an unsuspected strength — a shedding toward light.
Amid the chaos, we witness a rebirth, the ascension of a woman stronger than she appears.
Biography
Raphaëlle Schotsmans was born in Brussels in 1971 and graduated from the City of Brussels School of Photography (Agnès Varda).
Since 2009, she has developed personal projects regularly exhibited in Belgium and abroad.
Her work, rooted in figurative photography, explores the themes of childhood, identity, and appearance.
Inspired by the imagery of fantastic cinema, she stages her fascination with transgression and the mysteries of the human psyche through carefully composed series.
Her images, crafted through meticulous staging, question the threshold of pain that a human being can inflict upon themselves for pleasure — sometimes to the point of death — while delving into suffering in a manner both aesthetic and wild.
Works
