Interview
Rizlane Abdessamad
Born in Montreal and based between Canada and the United States, Rizlane is a visual artist devoted to rarity, timeless luxury, and the sacred beauty of the female form. Her 1/1 edition Tableaux-Photographiques merge fine art photography with fluid, ethereal movement, guiding collectors into an introspective journey of transformation and reverence for womanhood. Her practice begins with the sacred body—often nude—and the flowing movement of drapery, captured through intuitive dances and precise intentions of healing and liberation. Using long exposure, she unveils the invisible: the subconscious, the archetypal, the ethereal. In post-production, multiple exposures are layered to create fluid, dreamlike abstractions where surrealism and corporeality merge into powerful feminine archetypes.
A visionary pioneer, Rizlane transforms each work into a singular jewel by signing it with a natural diamond, uniquely inscribed and placed by hand. This historic gesture asserts absolute exclusivity in an era of infinite digital reproduction, elevating each piece into both a conceptual jewel and a living relic. As the first artist worldwide to sign photographs with diamonds, she redefines authorship itself—her signature becoming an alchemical act, a sacred seal that bridges the eternal brilliance of the diamond with the timeless beauty of the feminine body. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and canada. She is now part of the Artist Directory from Beautiful Bizarre community. Recognized internationally, Rizlane has been published in The Visual Art Journal, The Art Scene, and selected among the Top 100 Emerging Women Artists by Arts to Hearts Project and many more. She is also the recipient of multiple prestigious awards, including Second Place in the Fine Art Photography Awards (Body & Nudes). In February 2026, Rizlane will make her official debut at the prestigious Palm Beach Show, unveiling an avant-garde collection signed with De Beers Forevermark Diamonds—a series where photography itself becomes a jewel, and woman the eternal muse.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“Watching naked women, painted by my father’s hands, was the beginning of my consciousness, from a time when I didn’t even know how to walk. Seeing women depicted in a surreal way was the very foundation of my education. My father could paint women as tree-like beings of flesh or make them float above vast stretches of water, half-violin, half-human. This is how my journey with the arts began. I believe everyone is born creative, a creator of their own path, a creator of their desires, and I believe we are born artists, just as we are born healers or mathematicians. It is a deep-rooted essence that can pass from generation to generation. Thus, I have always been supported by my family in pursuing the arts, whether through visual arts at the college level or through learning photography from a very young age with my godmother, who always carried this magical box with her and allowed me to express myself through it. It was during my digital art course that I discovered both digital and analog photography, and the freedom of creation that digital photography offered—creating blurred universes, assembling, layering—which completely captivated me. This led me to continue my studies in photography at Cégep du Vieux Montréal.I now create photographic paintings inspired by my father’s talent as a painter and by artists who honor uniqueness. I create one-of-a-kind 1/1 works, printed, materialized, and signed with a diamond to emphasize their certification of authenticity. I present my work in Canada and the United States.”
What inspires you?
“Inspiration is a breath—without fully understanding, without overthinking. It is a breath that guides us to where an idea and a work must be materialized. What inspires me is the female body, the mind, the state of being, and how we can transmute our vision of the world and what we ae capable of becoming. Words, poetry, music, and dance—they all form a whole. What inspires me is cleansing our paths. To write, to burn what we no longer desire, and to embody a new intention through photography—that is the preciousness of the ritual. What inspires me is consciousness, the gesture, and the power of making a work of art the eternal cradle of transmutation. It is the idea of contemporary alchemy—the idea of burning our demons and seeing them as angels, as archetypes guiding us once again. It is allowing a work of art to become a mantra, to become a church for a biblical or spiritual representation. It is understanding that creating and giving form to an idea is participating in the universal aura, creating a new reality, and that artworks are tools for this magic—a relic of the past, the present, and the future. The woman is the same: like her ovaries and her power of reproduction, a work of art is like a woman. It holds history, knows how to reproduce beauty or destruction, and offers a reproduction—an idea, an interpretation. This is what inspires me. Not wanting children, my works of art become my children—the very embodiment of fertility and future.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“The theme of the woman, the body, transmutation, and energy is always present. Hiding symbols of belief within my works, materializing them, and embodying them is a brutal and vital source of inspiration. For example, NOX, my most recent creation as I write these lines, was born from a complete seven-day fast—consuming only water and coffee. At the end of the fast, in the night, I felt compelled to create in absolute darkness. My camera could not capture any form, so I assembled these shots (which exist—the body, the energy—but are completely black) with candle-lit exposures. This way, I can have twenty images to create a single work, like an architect or a painter layering structures and textures. NOX is thus a tribute to the goddess of the night, she is a primordial, powerful, and mysterious deity, representing not only physical night but also its symbolic aspects: mystery, the unconscious, dreams, transformation, and sometimes fate. Nox is often depicted as enveloping the world in her dark veil and is the mother of many deities, including personifications of abstractions such as sleep , death and destiny. Similarly, XIII was born from a specter, a visitor who came to my dreams. XIII is the number of love and abundance, historically demonized. XIII is the honour of the cycles of the moon, The 13th forgotten zodiac sign, the 13th forgotten month—XIII is a tribute to what is no longer seen but still exists, an archetype of protection and truth. Through my work, I seek to bring a form of purification, to honor states of performance, and to exist fully in co-presence with these artworks.”
How would you describe your work?
“I would describe my work as a new form of contemporary photography, conceptualized and collected differently—photographic paintings. I aim to create the unique, like a painter’s canvas, ensuring my collectors a true investment. My work goes almost against the conventional movement of photography, which is endlessly multiplied. I create 1/1 pieces sealed with a diamond—the diamond serving as a conceptual reflection of light and uniqueness, just like my photographic works. Light is the key to this medium, as is the 1/1 seal of a natural diamond, extracted from the depths of the earth. I now sign my works with a De Beers diamond encoded with a laser-signed code, 1/5000 of a hair. I push and protect photography so that it can become a new current of rarity. It must be printed, framed, and safeguarded—like a legacy. My works are born from the intention of a ritual. They emerge from a multitude of images and layers, where I erase parts and, through subtraction, create addition. Always in motion, always in the idea of fluidity, forming strata of possibilities.”
Which artists influence you most?
“All of them, all of them, for their uniqueness, for their one-of-a-kind nature. It’s such a broad question that I cannot name just one artist. I admire creators. All. I want to highlight my friend Angela Nikolau, whom I admire for her performances that put her life at risk and elevate women’s lives to the level of superheroes. I want to highlight Marina Abramović, the performer who, in my view, knows how to use her body and soul to convey messages so intensely human. I also want to honor Richard Bernardin, who, through his masculine and human eye, presents women in a respectful and dynamic way, almost as if lifted from great literature… I love the contemporary era. I love artists. All. Those who I know, and those I don't.”
“I would describe my work as a new form of contemporary photography, conceptualized and collected differently—photographic paintings.”
What is your creative process like?
“Everything begins with an intention, a vision, or a wish. A letter is then burned to make space for renewal. In the studio, always in natural light, I select a satin fabric of a symbolic color that becomes my new skin, like the allegory of the shedding serpent. I use this fabric to dance in front of the camera with long exposures—1/4 of a second, 1/2, sometimes even 2–3 seconds of continuous exposure—capturing movement and the magic that the eye alone cannot perceive. After the dance, I assemble 5, 10, or 20 images in post-production with Photoshop to create a suggestive work that conveys movement. No image is ever reused twice. The phase of materialization comes next: printing, framing, and signing with a precious stone. Only then is the work truly complete.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“The role of the artist is to live their emotions to the fullest, whether destructive or regenerative. Like the Phoenix, the artist must renew themselves simply by experiencing their highs and lows, always creating for themselves and themselves alone. This is the challenge in today’s world, where we are conditioned to seek validation and admiration from everyone, especially through social media. But the beauty of the artist, their true role, is to create beauty—suggestive, yes, but with the intention of materializing a work that can change a life and help others. A work of art can save a life. The artist must create for themselves, always, even when so-called ‘inspiration’ seems absent—it is always there; movement is needed to awaken it. From there, the artist must show their work, show it, show it, and in doing so, society is built. The artist becomes an engineer of thought and meditation, a parent of beauty.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“My upcoming Palm Beach Show in February 2026 is incredibly exciting! Among the exhibitions that have marked me, L’Ange Rouge stands out. In just four months, I created this solo exhibition entirely on my own, without financial help. I created 20 unique works featuring 20 different bodies. Since I mostly work in self-portraiture, in 2022 I wanted to present a new body of work that included trans individuals, women, men, and couples—each having experienced an intimate journey. On the night of the Red Moon, I presented these 20 works. I personally rented the venue, paid for champagne and oysters, covered the cost of printing, and gifted each work as a token of gratitude for the learning and trust of each of my models. For me, L’Ange Rouge—the angel of the heart, of blood, of connections—was my promise to myself to invest in us. As artists, we must also be entrepreneurs, creating our own galleries and representing ourselves in order to evolve; waiting around is not an option. L’Émanation du Corps in 2025 was an exhibition where a dozen works from the Diamond Collection were presented for the first time in a truly luxurious and luminous space. Again, I welcomed my guests with pride and met incredible people. The Focus Art Fair in New York, in May 2025, was also extremely important. Traveling to the United States, representing myself alone, and paying for the trip and the booth out of my own pocket—these were all milestones I am proud of. There are collector angels who resonate with the frequency of our work, and I met them in New York; they will forever remain in my heart. As artists, we must invest in ourselves and don't wait for galleries.”
