The Woman Sitting at her Dressing Table, the Mirrors Displayed
Published: 07.07.2026
How can jewellery transform an everyday gesture into a poetic act? Developed as part of the Master of Arts in Visual Arts at PXL Hasselt (Belgium), Julia Boix-Vives' thesis The Woman In Front Of The Mirror, Stories And Gestures explores the relationship between the body, reflection, and adornment through references drawn from cinema, photography, performance, and art history.
This article presents Chapter 6, The Woman Sitting at Her Dressing Table, the Mirrors Displayed, published as part of the complete thesis.
>> Read the full thesis in English
>> Lire le mémoire complet en français
Version française - French version 
ThroughThe Woman In Front Of The Mirror, Stories And Gestures, Julia Boix-Vives explores how the intimate rituals surrounding adornment can become poetic acts. Jewelry is not simply something to wear, but a medium capable of activating a gesture. inviting the wearer to become an active participant rather than a passive observer.
In her practice, the mirror is more than a reflective surface. It becomes a place of transformation, introspection, memory, and performance, where jewelry, the body, and gesture continually redefine one another.
In the sixth chapter, the author explores the symbolic world of the dressing table through artistic references that have shaped her research, alongside works by contemporary artists whose practices resonate with her own. Together, they reveal how mirrors, furniture, and everyday objects can become active elements within the narrative of jewelry.
#6 The woman sitting at her dressing table, the mirrors displayed
With this photo of Maya Deren by the filmmaker Alexander Hammid (main image), who was also her companion, we dive into the heart of the matter. Maya Deren poses in front of a dressing table with three mirrors, accompanied by the strange presence of a bald-headed fashion mannequin. Maya positions the doll in the same pose as herself (unless it's the other way around!), with a tilted head, mimicking the gesture of applying makeup. She wears identical clothes to the mannequin. Maya's face is just as pale as the doll's, her hand holding the makeup sponge in the same manner as the mannequin. Thanks to the play of mirrors, Maya appears surrounded by two mannequins. It's not immediately clear that they are the same. The dressing table is intricate: there are multiple table and shelf heights, beauty products neatly arranged on small white towels. There are bottles of perfume and lotion, pots of cream, a hairbrush, and peculiar brushes shaped like domes of Orthodox churches.
Everything seems a bit lifeless and dusty, evoking an uncanny strangeness. Freud described in a 1917 text this particular unease felt in the presence of dolls or people whose animation status is uncertain. He termed this feeling das Unheimliche, the Uncanny in English. Maya Deren was closely associated with the surrealist movement. The Surrealist artists, particularly Hans Bellmer, considered mannequins and dolls to be objects of great poetic power. [1]
What I find particularly potent in this photo is the plasticity of all these beauty accessories; they also become actors in the scene since everything is reduced to frozen objects. There's a very special atmosphere in this photo, like the feeling of being in an animated film: there's a distance from reality that becomes intangible. I also feel a lot of nostalgia when I see this theater dressing-room environment, and I empathise with the state of waiting in which the actors find themselves just before performing, as if they were no longer themselves but in their character...
Here, the woman in front of the mirror is playing a role, or perhaps she's playing at preparing to play a role. Maya Deren plays with the dolls and pretends to put on makeup, like a child playing and getting absorbed in her game.
Almut Heise: Boudoir, 1970. Pencil on transparent paper. 51 x 31 cm.
While searching for Almut Heise, who painted Ladies' Powder Room, I came across an etching by the same artist from 1970 called Boudoir. Heise beautifully depicted an elegant 1930s dressing table, an Asian-style lamp, and a screen. It's evident that light is coming in through a window opposite, indicated by a glint of light on the wall and shadows on the furniture. On the dressing table sits a perfume sprayer, a standing mirror, and... a powder compact. As I gaze at this image, a desire wells up within me: I would love to be able to place my jewelry created throughout this Master's year on it. Unfortunately, it's only a drawing.
This is how we turn to the works of jewelry and object artists who have also chosen to exhibit their creations on furniture, imbuing them with a particular significance. Sometimes, even the furniture itself becomes an integral part of the artwork, as in Room of Shadows by Anna Rikkinen.
Anna Rikkinen: Room for Shadows, 2009. Photo: Jaan Seitsara.
Anna Rikkinen creates an installation, Room for Shadows, where she brings together ghostly figures of baroque furniture with jewelry silhouettes to create dramatic ornaments. The artist is inspired by the building, ground and interiors of Versailles, she writes that it was meant to be a piece of jewelry on the landscape. [2]
In 2018, Anna displayed a collection of nested mirrors on the window ledge of Pinta Galleria in Vääksy, Finland. Presented under the dreamlike title of the installation: She Needed Sixty-Nine Mirrors to Be Prepared for the Ball, which invited viewers to escape into a sort of modern fairy tale.
Anna Rikkinen. Installation: She Needed Sixty-Nine Mirrors to Get Ready for the Ball (Hän tarvitsi kuusikymmentäyhdeksän peiliä valmistautuakseen tanssiaisiin), 2018. Art Center East, Lappeenranta, Finland.
Adi Toch. Speculum metal hand mirrors: Between Presence and Absence, 2023. Photo: Thom Atkinson.
Last year (2023), the solo exhibition by the artist Adi Toch, Between Presence and Absence, at Marzee gallery in Nijmegen, presented an entire body of work that resonates with mine, and in particular, her mirror objects have accompanied me greatly throughout my Master's project.
Adi Toch writes about this work: Reflection has an ethereal and intangible nature. It escapes touch or any other sense, except vision. It captures only a fleeting moment. A mirror portrays both fullness and emptiness at the same time. [3]
Adi Toch. Speculum metal hand mirrors: Between Presence and Absence, 2023.
Photo: Thom Atkinson
By observing the various ways of presenting objects and jewelry placed on different surfaces, such as the edge of the gallery showcase or the surface of a baroque cardboard table at Anna Rikkinen's, or the wooden dresser with its warm, mottled texture where Adi Toch's mirrors are placed, I am struck by the narrative force they emanate. How does an object or a piece of jewelry hold such power to lead us towards the intangible? I believe they exert a magnetic attraction on us in part because they are meant to be held, touched, felt, and ultimately worn. This emotional pull towards a beautiful object placed on a piece of furniture or discovered when opening a drawer harks back to a memory that I now realize has been the inspiration behind my recent creations.
In my parents' bedroom stood a small 18th-century dressing table. The furniture could completely close with folding trays, and even the mirror could fold, revealing a secret drawer. It was in this piece of furniture that my mother kept her jewelry. How much time did I spend as a child opening and closing the trays, opening the cases, trying on the jewelry, and undoubtedly, looking at myself in the mirror?
Here is a photo of a dressing table that closely resembles my mother's.
A Louis XVI dressing table, around 1800. 80 x 46 x 73 cm.
Since then, all her jewelry has been stolen, and the dressing table has remained empty of its treasures. I intend to present the jewelry and objects from my master's project delicately arranged on a dressing table. The installation will be titled Powder Memories - Mirror Rituals, paying homage to this childhood memory.
Exhibition Display The Powder Room by Julia Boix-Vives. Exhibition Magic Mirror on the Wall at DIVA Museum. Photo by Julia Boix-Vives.
>> Read the full thesis in English
Notes:
[1]: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/media/Aj20D1M
[2]: https://www.annarikkinen.com
[3]: https://tlmagazine.com/adi-toch-the-art-of-reflection/
In her practice, the mirror is more than a reflective surface. It becomes a place of transformation, introspection, memory, and performance, where jewelry, the body, and gesture continually redefine one another.
In the sixth chapter, the author explores the symbolic world of the dressing table through artistic references that have shaped her research, alongside works by contemporary artists whose practices resonate with her own. Together, they reveal how mirrors, furniture, and everyday objects can become active elements within the narrative of jewelry.
#6 The woman sitting at her dressing table, the mirrors displayed
With this photo of Maya Deren by the filmmaker Alexander Hammid (main image), who was also her companion, we dive into the heart of the matter. Maya Deren poses in front of a dressing table with three mirrors, accompanied by the strange presence of a bald-headed fashion mannequin. Maya positions the doll in the same pose as herself (unless it's the other way around!), with a tilted head, mimicking the gesture of applying makeup. She wears identical clothes to the mannequin. Maya's face is just as pale as the doll's, her hand holding the makeup sponge in the same manner as the mannequin. Thanks to the play of mirrors, Maya appears surrounded by two mannequins. It's not immediately clear that they are the same. The dressing table is intricate: there are multiple table and shelf heights, beauty products neatly arranged on small white towels. There are bottles of perfume and lotion, pots of cream, a hairbrush, and peculiar brushes shaped like domes of Orthodox churches.
Everything seems a bit lifeless and dusty, evoking an uncanny strangeness. Freud described in a 1917 text this particular unease felt in the presence of dolls or people whose animation status is uncertain. He termed this feeling das Unheimliche, the Uncanny in English. Maya Deren was closely associated with the surrealist movement. The Surrealist artists, particularly Hans Bellmer, considered mannequins and dolls to be objects of great poetic power. [1]
What I find particularly potent in this photo is the plasticity of all these beauty accessories; they also become actors in the scene since everything is reduced to frozen objects. There's a very special atmosphere in this photo, like the feeling of being in an animated film: there's a distance from reality that becomes intangible. I also feel a lot of nostalgia when I see this theater dressing-room environment, and I empathise with the state of waiting in which the actors find themselves just before performing, as if they were no longer themselves but in their character...
Here, the woman in front of the mirror is playing a role, or perhaps she's playing at preparing to play a role. Maya Deren plays with the dolls and pretends to put on makeup, like a child playing and getting absorbed in her game.
While searching for Almut Heise, who painted Ladies' Powder Room, I came across an etching by the same artist from 1970 called Boudoir. Heise beautifully depicted an elegant 1930s dressing table, an Asian-style lamp, and a screen. It's evident that light is coming in through a window opposite, indicated by a glint of light on the wall and shadows on the furniture. On the dressing table sits a perfume sprayer, a standing mirror, and... a powder compact. As I gaze at this image, a desire wells up within me: I would love to be able to place my jewelry created throughout this Master's year on it. Unfortunately, it's only a drawing.
This is how we turn to the works of jewelry and object artists who have also chosen to exhibit their creations on furniture, imbuing them with a particular significance. Sometimes, even the furniture itself becomes an integral part of the artwork, as in Room of Shadows by Anna Rikkinen.
Anna Rikkinen creates an installation, Room for Shadows, where she brings together ghostly figures of baroque furniture with jewelry silhouettes to create dramatic ornaments. The artist is inspired by the building, ground and interiors of Versailles, she writes that it was meant to be a piece of jewelry on the landscape. [2]
In 2018, Anna displayed a collection of nested mirrors on the window ledge of Pinta Galleria in Vääksy, Finland. Presented under the dreamlike title of the installation: She Needed Sixty-Nine Mirrors to Be Prepared for the Ball, which invited viewers to escape into a sort of modern fairy tale.
Last year (2023), the solo exhibition by the artist Adi Toch, Between Presence and Absence, at Marzee gallery in Nijmegen, presented an entire body of work that resonates with mine, and in particular, her mirror objects have accompanied me greatly throughout my Master's project.
Adi Toch writes about this work: Reflection has an ethereal and intangible nature. It escapes touch or any other sense, except vision. It captures only a fleeting moment. A mirror portrays both fullness and emptiness at the same time. [3]
Photo: Thom Atkinson
By observing the various ways of presenting objects and jewelry placed on different surfaces, such as the edge of the gallery showcase or the surface of a baroque cardboard table at Anna Rikkinen's, or the wooden dresser with its warm, mottled texture where Adi Toch's mirrors are placed, I am struck by the narrative force they emanate. How does an object or a piece of jewelry hold such power to lead us towards the intangible? I believe they exert a magnetic attraction on us in part because they are meant to be held, touched, felt, and ultimately worn. This emotional pull towards a beautiful object placed on a piece of furniture or discovered when opening a drawer harks back to a memory that I now realize has been the inspiration behind my recent creations.
In my parents' bedroom stood a small 18th-century dressing table. The furniture could completely close with folding trays, and even the mirror could fold, revealing a secret drawer. It was in this piece of furniture that my mother kept her jewelry. How much time did I spend as a child opening and closing the trays, opening the cases, trying on the jewelry, and undoubtedly, looking at myself in the mirror?
Here is a photo of a dressing table that closely resembles my mother's.
Since then, all her jewelry has been stolen, and the dressing table has remained empty of its treasures. I intend to present the jewelry and objects from my master's project delicately arranged on a dressing table. The installation will be titled Powder Memories - Mirror Rituals, paying homage to this childhood memory.
Exhibition Display The Powder Room by Julia Boix-Vives. Exhibition Magic Mirror on the Wall at DIVA Museum. Photo by Julia Boix-Vives.>> Read the full thesis in English
Notes:
[1]: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/media/Aj20D1M
[2]: https://www.annarikkinen.com
[3]: https://tlmagazine.com/adi-toch-the-art-of-reflection/
About the author
Julia Boix-Vives is a French artist based in the Netherlands. Working across visual arts and contemporary jewelry, her practice explores gesture, the body, and the rituals of adornment. She graduated with great distinction from the Master's program in Jewelry and Object at PXL-MAD School of Arts (Belgium) in 2024, and exhibited in an international collective exhibition and at DIVA Museum in 2026 after a three-month residency.
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