French photographer Estelle Hanania is a past winner of the prestigious Hyères Festival photo prize and has used her distinctive primitive style to great effect for brands such as Maison Martin Margiela and Opening Ceremony.

Her latest exhibition features work from her ongoing creative collaboration with artist Christophe Brunquell. A creative relationship that began at a shoot in Berlin in 2008 has continued in Paris and beyond.

Blending art, photography and theatre, the images from La Guerre du Feu – the quest for fire – recall primitive communities through body paint, nudity and inferences of cannibalism. Brunquell used old portraits of his models to make masks, for their real personas to break through. The effect is disorientating and savage and surely is some of the most arresting imagery Twin’s seen in a long time.

La Guerre du Feu by Hanania & Brunquell is at 12MAIL, 12 rue du Mail, Paris until 1 June
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Tags: 12 Mail, Christophe Brunquell, Estelle Hanania, La Gare du Feu