Salon de coiffure

I made this during a SAFFCA residency in Knysna, South Africa, thinking about the barbershop posters I kept seeing there and in France. Those familiar portraits, lined up in a grid, belong to everyday life, but inside the Vapeurs Toxiques series I wanted them to emerge through synthetic oranges and toxic blues, as if the air around them had changed. The title Always Gentle matters to me because even in that unstable atmosphere, a human need for care and self-respect remains.