The catalogue of the eponymous exhibition by Caroline Mesquita,
published on the occasion of her Fondation Ricard Prize. The French artist
works primarily with metal, creating sculptures and staged video with strong
narratives.
Caroline Mesquita's sculptural practice intertwines the materiality of her
altered, oxidized, and painted brass sheets with theatrical playfulness. Her
metallurgic experiments result in life-size figures, interacting with each
other in a mise-en-scène crafted from sculpted sheet metal and an
environment of coated steel. For the exhibition “The Ballad”, Mesquita
produced a series of twelve sculpted characters interacting and facing each
other or the viewer, as their presence blurs the line between fiction and
reality, humans and mannequins. It is a procession, a form of public
celebration, a moment of communion, frozen in time and space.
Published following the eponymous exhibitions at Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, Paris, from January 24 to March 11, 2017, and at 221A, Vancouver, from April 4 to June 3, 2017.
Caroline Mesquita (born 1989 in Brest, lives and works in Marseille) is a
sculptor and video
artist, mainly working with metal. She creates sculptures like
airplanes, spaceships and motorcycles, all journey in the direction of a
radical imagination. Raw material provides the spark that animates her
narrative engagement with notions of science
fiction, religion, embodiment, transformation, sensuality, and
sociability. Mesquita's works are darkened, patinated and roughly textured
through an oxidation process. With this technique, Mesquita manipulates
the metal like a form of painting. These material transformations provide
a format for storytelling about the human experience and the directness of
action and exchange in relationships. Either around or using her metallic
creations, she also creates videos, sound
environments and performance
films in which she appears herself. Caroline Mesquita is the winner of the 2017 Prize of the Fondation d'entreprise Ricard.
