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Marie-Jo Lafontaine studied at the Higher Institute of Decorative Arts at La Cambre in Brussels between 1975 and 1979 and, while still in school, won the Young Belgian Painting Prize (1977). Although Lafontaine is known primarily as a pioneer of video art in Belgium, her work is extremely diverse. In photographs, paintings, sculptures and tapestries, the Schaerbeek-based artist explores diverse, seemingly contradictory aspects of human identity. Ambiguity runs like a thread through her oeuvre. Her characters are saints and villains at the same time. Recurring themes are the connection between eros and thanatos or between violence and sexuality. In 1987 Lafontaine was selected for documenta 8 in Kassel and during the opening ceremony of the World Cup in Germany in 2006 she provided the video projections on the skyscrapers of Frankfurt.