The Filles en Fleurs series extends the Déflorée exploration of mapping the unconscious through collage. In these works, Hallier fuses human figures with petals and beads in a dynamic interplay between nature and artifice, subject and ornament, body and embellishment. The figures—often over-expressive and exaggerated—recall the chorus lines of American musicals: rows of “girls” caught in the liminal space between the background and the spotlight, the decorative and the central. By positioning these hybrid figures between presence and absence, Hallier interrogates performative femininity, objectification, and the ways in which cultural narratives shape identity.

The use of beads in these collages adds a layer of cultural reference, evoking both craft traditions, gendered labor and technological culture. Their glittering surfaces suggest beauty and celebration, but also conceal the stories of hands that made them and system created. In Hallier’s hands, these materials become talismanic, weighted with both personal and collective memory. They offer an aesthetic that is at once celebratory and subversive—one that challenges fixed meanings and invites multiplicity.

This series started a long time ago. After writing a thesis on American Musicals, I conveyed my fascination for the Chorus Line by creating collages, mixing photographic self portraits taken in photobooth, drawings, stickers and magazine scraps. The original collages inspired a 3D animation that I finished for my MFA at the School of Visual Arts: Monsterparty. The piece won prices at SIGGRAPH and international festivals.