Gallery Entry
Madame Claude
By Belinda Frikh · FR
Madame Claude (2026) explores feminine presence, power and the act of looking. The figure is elegant and seductive, yet never passive: she meets the viewer directly, holding her ground through a gaze that seems to follow you across the room. Created through drawing, collage and mixed media, the work combines graphic black, metallic gold and carefully constructed decorative elements. It emerged from my ongoing exploration of the codes of feminine beauty and representation, particularly those shaped between the 1920s and 1980s. The work is entirely human-made, developed through drawing, composition, material experimentation and hand-finishing. Its imperfections, decisions and physical interventions are integral to the finished piece. In Madame Claude, the gaze became particularly important to me: the moment when an image stops simply being looked at and appears to look back.