Familiar Faces, Unsettled
Matthieu Bourel’s Duplicity is a facial manipulation series that turns recognition into something strange and absorbing. Using duplicated elements from the same or related photographs, Bourel morphs old Hollywood starlets and actors into portraits that feel elegant at first glance, then quietly disturbing the longer you look.
Classic Glamour Reworked
The source material is familiar. Vintage film stills, studio portraits, and icons of old Hollywood beauty. Bourel takes that polished perfection and disrupts it through repetition and symmetry. Eyes double, mouths multiply, and facial features slide into unexpected alignments. The result is a collision of glamour and distortion that feels intentional rather than gimmicky.
The Power of Duplication
By repeating elements of the face, Bourel forces the viewer to confront how much identity relies on balance and proportion. A single change can shift a face from beautiful to uncanny. These portraits hover in that uncomfortable middle space, where attraction and unease coexist. The manipulation feels precise and controlled, never sloppy or excessive.
Why It Resonates
Duplicity works because it challenges how we consume images of beauty. Old Hollywood was built on illusion, perfection, and carefully constructed personas. Bourel exposes that artifice by literally pulling faces apart and putting them back together in ways that no longer behave as expected.
Duplicity is elegant, unsettling, and quietly addictive, a reminder that familiarity can become strange with just one subtle shift.
Credits
Artist: Matthieu Bourel
Series: Duplicity
Year: N/A
Medium: Digital collage and photo manipulation
Category: Fine Art / Digital Portraiture
