Coming from a family of artists, French artist Coco Fronsac culls sepia-toned vintage portraits from flea markets and enhances them in various ways, primarily by painting over their faces with bright tribal masks. In this way, her characters become frozen in their elegant, shamanic finery, an unlikely meeting producing a magical veneer.

“This association between a mask and a portrait is a meeting,” says the Paris-based artist. “Masked, hidden, revised, they proudly wear a new face, that of the weird, the quirky, the humorous.” By turning found family photos into surreal art, Fronsac reconnects the viewer’s relationship with the subject matter. The reinvented images encourage the viewer to take a second look.