X-ray portraiture: Seeing more deeply with the art of Xavier Lucchessi

Photographer Xavier Lucchessi creates portraits using x-ray imaging. He has worked

with the museums of Paris, including the Louvre and the Musee D'Orsey photographing and interpreting museum collections ranging from African Art to plaster casts by Picasso, in addition to having a built a substantial body of work in a wide range of subject matter including automatons and bacteria, and has also published several books of his collections. The results are dramatic, emotional and highly graphic images that defy antipathy; in both black-and-white to highly colored formats to best suit the subject and mood. 

Plaster cast by Picasso interpreted by Luchessi

States Lucchessi,  "What is at stake here is that the gesture of going through matter makes it possible to see through and into matter. It is a human gesture, but it can only be made mentally if we are visionaries, or with the help of a special device. It is the gesture of the seer when he looks at you straight in the eyes and sees your soul. It is the gesture of X rays machines that look at matter and see what it conceals inside."

Bacteria become modern art through Lucchessi's eyes

Primitive sophistication, African mask, Lucchessi

Ballerina automaton

Ad from Lucchessi's latest exhibit