Claire Fanjul

Claire Fanjul is a French artist born in Liège (Belgium) who works and exhibits regularly in Brussels and Paris .

The Ys Gallery (Brussels, Belgium) collaborated with Claire in 2008. She was then spotted by the Alfa Gallery (Paris) who devoted a solo exhibition the following year on the theme logos interpreted as blazon.

In 2009 and 2010, the Artegalore Gallery (Paris) presented her ink pen work in the context of exhibitions devoted to contemporary design , while the luxury brand Ahilya (London) commissioned  a graphic work printed on cashmere .

Since 2011 , Claire is represented by the Mazel Galerie (Brussels) who regularly exhibited her ink drawings from the series and Volatile Oil Platforms .

In September 2012, the magazine Hey! Modern art and pop culture devoted an  interview and published her drawings in the No. 11. “Fooding and office” used Claire to illustrate the booklet Grand Fooding New York 2012 on the theme of the borough of Brooklyn.

In December 2012 and 2013, the agency Artegalore reach out to Claire to intervene graphically on a design table of the Bouroullec brothers then on a chair by Jean Prouvé produced by Vitra. The works are exhibited and sold at auction in Paris in favor of association La Source.

Artist’s statement:

“Cross-hatching, dots, grids, wefts, and stippling have made up my graphic vocabulary for over ten years. I engrave and draw on paper, as well as on three dimensional objects - ostrich eggs, cow skulls, earthenware human skulls... I recently dove into marine maps from fifteenth and sixteenth century conquistadors because I wanted to develop maps of imaginary worlds.

The typefaces on the maps, which used to be chiseled into metal, made me want to create an alphabet, and the wide variety of monsters drawn at the time echo the bestiary that I've been drawing and engraving for years. The original naive small scenes, the topography in the landscapes, the way bodies of water and the vegetation are portrayed all are endless sources of inspiration. So, the shape of ancient globes and their ancient graphic qualities are the jumping off point for my latest series called "Utopia", made with Posca on massive linden-wood spheres.”

The work of Claire Fanjul is placed under the sign of ambivalence. This young artist is steeped in the ancient culture and also mastered the traditional techniques such as engraving and etching. She draws her inspiration from the repertoire of primitive Flemish and German to shape her dreams and gives clearly a vision of the imagination of our century. Fanjul’s ink and line drawings have a dark edge with twisted characters, faces and fauna intertwined in a tapestry that tells its own story.