For Paris-based visual artist Carmen Bado, the canvas is her own body. Trained in graphic design and working as an art director, she layers, spreads and scrapes materials across her body, turning her skin into an entirely different surface. She calls these experiments her "visual accidents." The body is both her tool and her material.
Sometimes she lays rose petals one by one like scales. Sometimes she heaps white foam on her body until it looks like an unfinished marble sculpture. Gel spread over the skin is combed into stripes. Wrinkles, folds of flesh, the curves of the body are translated into new textures.
For Carmen Bado, the body is a material. She describes her work as something close to a diary, even a form of healing. Having grown up in an environment where femininity was hard to express, shaping and recording her own body is also, for her, a way of taking back control. The skin becomes the first page of a story she rewrites.
The materials change every time. Petals, foam, gel, black paint. The methods vary too. She layers, spreads, scrapes, builds up surfaces. The results are captured in photos and videos. The body disappears, but the surface it creates remains on record.
What surface could your body become?
Sometimes she lays rose petals one by one like scales. Sometimes she heaps white foam on her body until it looks like an unfinished marble sculpture. Gel spread over the skin is combed into stripes. Wrinkles, folds of flesh, the curves of the body are translated into new textures.
For Carmen Bado, the body is a material. She describes her work as something close to a diary, even a form of healing. Having grown up in an environment where femininity was hard to express, shaping and recording her own body is also, for her, a way of taking back control. The skin becomes the first page of a story she rewrites.
The materials change every time. Petals, foam, gel, black paint. The methods vary too. She layers, spreads, scrapes, builds up surfaces. The results are captured in photos and videos. The body disappears, but the surface it creates remains on record.
What surface could your body become?
FAQ
What kind of work does Carmen Bado do?
Carmen Bado is a visual artist who uses her body as a canvas, layering rose petals, foam, gel, and paint—then scraping and manipulating them. Trained in graphic design and working as an art director, she calls this skin-transforming practice 'visual thinking.'
What meaning does Carmen Bado's work hold?
Carmen Bado describes her work as both diary and healing. Having grown up in an environment where expressing femininity was difficult, molding and documenting her own body became a way to reclaim agency and control.
What materials does Carmen Bado use?
Carmen Bado works with rose petals, white foam, gel, black paint, and other materials. She layers them onto her body, applies and scrapes with combs, transforming skin into new textures and surfaces.
