Second Nature
Designer
Dreamprotocol
Country
France
category
Portrait
Prize
Official Selection 2026
Short Description
In this portrait, I wanted the gaze to become a point of resistance. It neither seeks to seduce nor allows itself to be fully grasped: it observes, maintains a distance, and asserts its presence.
The figure’s ethnic identity occupies a central place without being reduced to a purely aesthetic element. It is embedded in the facial features, the skin, and the hairstyle, before encountering a transparent, organic material that gradually envelops the body. Somewhere between a garment, a membrane, and a second skin, this covering protects as much as it exposes. It allows the individual to remain visible while setting their transformation in motion.
Through this figure, I explore an identity that is not erased by mutation, but continues to exist and resist. The body becomes a living territory, suspended between heritage and becoming, humanity and a new form of being.
Process
As part of my process, I create texture studies inspired by painting and printmaking, which I then incorporate as visual references into an ultra-realistic image-generation process. Their pigments, irregularities, and layered traces merge with the precision and physical presence of photographic realism. This encounter between pictorial materiality and hyperrealism gives the image its distinctive visual quality, creating a surface that feels simultaneously organic, translucent, tactile, and alive.
