In 2018 Joëlle Dubois started a series of monochrome drawings of naked women and their mobile phones. These square drawings, eventually numbering eighty or so, are a tour de force of variety through uniformity, as her women contort themselves into the square shape in every possible configuration of interaction between human and device. The simple treatment, devoid of identifying colour of skin or phone, adds to the power of this important portfolio, the repetition forcing the viewer to muse on the ubiquity of the subjects’ experience.

Maurice Funken, Art Director of the Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, writes of Dubois’ drawings, ‘The format of the paper dictates the content – naked female bodies, curved and limited in height and width to the sheet size. Trapped in this space defined by the artist and thus only confronted with themselves, the women use the omnipresent smartphone to ask questions about their own sexuality and weigh them up against the unrealistic expectations placed on them by society. Here her own obsession with technology is usefully converted, a positive view that the artist shares as well: according to her own statement Dubois also uses her smartphone almost obsessively. On the one hand as an archive, with which she explores her own biography, looking backwards. In addition, the device opens up communication options, even outside of your own comfort zone.’