ORLAN

ABOUT ARTIST

ORLAN (b. 1947, Saint- Étienne, Loire) is a French artist born by the name Mireille Suzanne Francette Portes. She adopted the name ORLAN in 1971, which she always writes in capital letters : "ORLAN." Her subsequent career has been a series of rebirths and triumphs of will over technology and a transformation of her body. She's had numerous plastic surgery operations to create what she calls "carnal art." (From 1990 to 1995, she underwent nine plastic surgery operations) In one operation she had her mouth altered to imitate that of  "Francois Boucher's Europa," and in another had her forehead changed to mimic the protruding brow of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. 

Her work has been called feminist as it questions the status of the body in society, and she continually investigates the political, cultural and religious pressures that the female body is subjected to. 

She lives and works in New York, LA, and Paris.