The Body

The Body is a handmade illuminated manuscript that portrays different parts of the human form as a kind of visual “lexicon”. As if learning from a child’s book, each page reimagines and distorts familiar body parts (the head, nose, eyes, tongue, hand, leg, hair, ear, stomach, breast, vagina, and heart) inviting us to reconsider our own notions of corporeality. The book also weaves in art historical references: for instance, the pages The Hand and The Leg recall the iconic 1929 silent short film Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, while the depictions of the breast and vagina echo the Renaissance painting Gabrielle d'Estrées and One of Her Sisters, in which one woman touches the other’s nipple. In this book, the body is both dictionary and enigma, an alphabet of flesh whose meaning is always unfolding.