Fanny Ferré, “Tribal Crossings”

RANDOM reviews. It's right there in the title. I have every right to go review modern fine art by some French sculptress, if I like. I could post a review of the color orange if I liked and still not be betraying the core concept of this blog.

So!  Traversées Tribales (Tribal Crossings to non-French-speakers) is a series of very beautiful, very skillfully-made terracotta statues by contemporary artist Fanny Ferré. Whilst vacationing in Honfleur, I stumbled upon an exhibition of the collection, and took a number of pictures of it (all the pictures below are mine), and therefore decided I might as well blog about it.

Ferré's statues mostly depict humans (some life-sized, others delicate miniatures of exquisite detail). It is a little hard to tell what sort of humans — a prehistoric sort of civilization, as the title implies; one is tempted to think Neolithic, and there are some figures who are not unlike Neanderthals in their facial features, though the sort of animal life depicted — and, indeed, the general feeling one gets — should place them further south. It does not really matter; what matters is the feeling they give off, and that feeling is a charming sort of nomadic Neolothic. A lot of the figures are bathing — some of them in the nude — and I do not quite know why, save perhaps that Ferré enjoyed the challenge of depicting bathing in a medium where liquid water itself cannot be convincingly rendered.

Gangly, exaggerated, with their legs at odd angles, Ferré's human figures are not what you might call ‘realistic’, though they do feel 'real' and 'alive' on an emotional level — they do feel as though they are mare of flesh and blood. It's quite an amazing trick. Indeed, they are quite beautiful. It is not unlike some examples I've seen of prehistoric art and sculpting, which I'm sure is no coincidence. 

There are objects, too, and animal figures, mostly barnyard ones. They too are extremely well-done — Ferré's is truly an excellent depiction of fur, better than one would assume possible with roughly-modelled terracotta — though in a surprisingly different style from their human masters. Which is not to say they don't fit in with the rest of the artwork, mind you; somehow, they do. I'm just stating facts.

So… there you are. What I say is, hallelujah, for there are still good artists in the world, and some of them even get exhibitions to their names in French seaside resorts!…

Post-Scriptum:

• The below life-sized terracotta goat is a beautiful artpiece, yes, but the expression on its face also looks like an Internet reaction image. Doesn't it?