"In 1641 architect-artist Gianlorenzo Bernini unveiled the first of two bell towers at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Two months later, cracks appeared in the foundation. When the damage spread to the main church facade, Bernini faced a choice: Keep going or tear the whole thing down and eat the loss? French artist Marie Aimee Fattouche contemplates a similar question with anthropomorphic metal sculptures that walk a fine line between minor dysfunction and total breakdown.
Conceptually, Fattouche’s sculptures hinge on what she calls “structural mechanics”—whether those mechanics arise from the body, the mind, or the environment. Her bizarre works, crafted with sheets of metal, plaster, and joint mechanisms, look like they might come crawling out of a mad scientist’s lab after midnight. With their pastiche of body parts and biomechatronic appendages, Fattouche’s Frankenstein-like creations are more cyborg than mammal or outright monster.
Using what writer and philosopher Robert M. Pirsig calls “classical understanding,” Fattouche looks at underlying form and structure to understand the world. “Its purpose is not to inspire emotionally, but to bring order out of chaos and make the unknown known,” writes Pirsig of classical understanding in his classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. However, Fattouche subverts Pirsig’s idea with work that tries to make sense of the world through systems, laws, and logic—and fails. The result is a delightfully freakish version of our human systems and structures: shattered bodies beyond repair, physical pain, mental circuitry, learned behaviors and thought patterns stuck in an endless loop.
Several years after cracks appeared in Bernini’s bell tower, the project was abandoned and demolished. Whether it could have been saved remains a point of contention. Similarly, Fattouche’s work exists “between repair and improvement, a minor dysfunction to breakdown, a precarious impulse to stability.” Her sculptures look carefully at points of vulnerability in our lives–the cracks in the facade–and asks whether we should, like Bernini, eat our losses or putty, patch, and paint our way into an uncertain future."
Morgan Laurens, art critic
Los Angeles, June 2021
Photo credit: Romain Fonsanou
MARIE AIMÉE FATTOUCHE
Born in 1991, lives and works in Seine-Saint-Denis, France.
Marie Aimée Fattouche draws inspiration from her fascination with mechanics, whether mental, bodily, or environmental. From simple disruptions to breakdowns, from initial impulses to the ultimate fluidity of movement, her art navigates the space between repair and sublimation, exploring areas of uncertainty where contradictory possibilities converge. For her, each fracture, whether tangible or abstract, serves as a catalyst for profound transformation.
Imbued with her Egyptian roots, her perspective on the organization of bodies reflects Eastern perceptions of space. Through her work, she actively interrogates collective narratives and femininity while scrutinizing mechanisms of power and belief systems. Her artistic compositions offer a multitude of perspectives, both spatial and temporal, inviting the viewer to immerse themselves in a construction perpetually in motion, transcending mere representation.
Following her final MA Fine Art exhibition in 2016 (Chelsea College of Arts, London), M.A Fattouche was awarded the Mercers’ Arts Award. In 2017, as the winner of the Red Mansion Art Prize, she was invited to spend a month of residency in Beijing. In 2019, she had the honor of being among the eight artists shortlisted for the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award at Standpoint Gallery in London (the UK’s most prestigious prize for emerging artists working in sculpture). Her work has been exhibited in various institutions, including the Hockney Gallery (2018), and more recently at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMC+) in Saint-Étienne as part of the GLOBALISTO exhibition (June to October 2022). In January 2024, she has presented her solo exhibition NOUS INFINIR MON AMOUR at Galerie du Haut-Pavé in Paris.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
NOUS INFINIR MON AMOUR
La Galerie du Haut-Pavé
Paris. France
YAANI
Toula Gallery
Online
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
GLOBALISTO: UNE PHILOSOPHIE EN MOUVEMENT
Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne (MAMC+)
Saint-Étienne. France
CARE DON’T CARE
Basis Projektraum
Frankfurt. Germany
AIR COMPETITION 2021
The Muse Gallery
London. United-Kingdom
MUSE
Toula Gallery
Online
THREE PILLARS
Chelsea Gallery. Old Town Hall
London. United-Kingdom
ART CAR BOOT FAIR
London. United-Kingdom
HARBINGERS: THE RAPTURE
Harbingers
London. United-Kingdom
PARADISE UNDERGROUND
Sugar Cane
London. United-Kingdom
BATTERY HORIZONS
Hockney Gallery. RCA
London. United-Kingdom
CAST OF MY SHAPE
E1 7TP.
London. United-Kingdom
FORTUNE
Safehouse 1. Maverick Projects
London. United-Kingdom
THE SACRED 419
The Square Gallery
London. United-Kingdom
HOTEL 419
The Muse Gallery.
London. United-Kingdom
UBUNTU
Punctum Gallery.
London. United-Kingdom
BREATH OF BRAHMA
Morgue Gallery.
London. United-Kingdom
ONE
Cookhouse.
London. United-Kingdom
CONVERSATION IN PROGRESS
Mills Centre Gallery.
London. United-Kingdom
FLY BY THE SEAT OF YOUR PANTSUIT
Cookhouse.
London. United-Kingdom
DOING
Chelsea College of Arts.
London. United-Kingdom
PRESS AND PUBLICATIONS
GLOBALISTO | UNE PHILOSOPHIE EN MOUVEMENT | ACTES D’UN IMBIZO
Exhibition catalog. Page 48-49.
Saint Étienne. France
L’ART ET LA (DÉ)COLONISATION
Conference
Saint Étienne. France
LE 1 HEBDO
Video interview (00:02:15)
Saint Étienne. France
CHINA EXCHANGE
Digital publication
The Red Mansion Foundation publication. Page 271.
London. United-Kingdom
NOT REAL ART
Digital publication.
Q + Art: Fattouche Explores Dysfunction with Bizarre Mechanical Sculptures.
Los Angeles. United-States
Video interview (00:03:35)
Bleu Carbone Production.
Pantin. France
Digital publication
Issue No.1.
New York. United-States
Digital publication
Chelsea College of Arts blog.
London. United-Kingdom
AWARDS & ARTISTS' RESIDENCIES
POT KOMMON
Residency: one week program of collective research
le 6B, Mains d’Oeuvres, Les Poussières, la Villa Mais d’Ici
Saint Denis. France
WEEK-ENDS DE L’IMPOSSIBLE
Residency: one collaborative research weekend on black hole
Le Théâtre de La Nef
Pantin. France
AIR COMPETITION 2020-2021
Shortlisted
The Muse Gallery
London. United-Kingdom
MARK TANNER SCULPTURE AWARD
Shortlisted
London. United-Kingdom
RED GATE RESIDENCY
Residency: one month research program
Beijing. China
THE RED MANSION FOUNDATION
Recipient
London. United-Kingdom
MERCERS’ ARTS AWARD
Recipient
London. United-Kingdom
EDUCATION
MA FINE ART
Chelsea College of Arts
London. United-Kingdom
FOUNDATION YEAR
Esag Penninghen.
Paris. France.
2015-2016
2009-2010
2022
2021
2019
2017
2016
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2024
2021
2024
2022
2021
2020
2017