Motel 42

Motel 42 is a series of self-portraits shot in the US on black and white film. Every photo was printed and hand colored with oil paint. The complete series contains 42 hand painted photos.

Motel 42 is a series of self-portraits shot in the US on black and white film. The photographs were then printed and hand-colored with oil paint. 

I joined my musician boyfriend during his US tour and discovered a whole world that I only had seen in movies: the American motels. I decided to document every mornings in the motel rooms, in order to show the intimacy, the inside, the silence of this overwhelming trip. All i was interested in showing was what i could find in the room and what i could do to it with my brushes. A rollercoaster at the window, a light suggesting the burning end of the world or the arrival of an angel behind the glass, the same dresses everyday, flesh, awkwardness, love and loneliness. 

I created pictorial compositions with whatever was there in the room, using my body as the common thread of the 42 different motel beds we slept in. With the use of color, I turned the grey and dirty rooms into some disturbing and cherished worlds of my own.