Frédérique Clément

In the middle of iron-iridescent frames, or inside a wooden altarpiece, as one piece or as a triptych, Frédérique Clément’s black and white photographs show male and female nudes in a frontal, full-length ad marble sculpture-like view. But these statues became alive and Frédérique Clément caught the trace of their first movements, distorted like Bacon’s figures but with the grace of an ethereal ballet. The bodies are naked but draped with motion. Amongst all the shapes formed by the models, we can make out a head-off man, a bird-lady, a centaur… These hybridizations reveal a kind of fantastic bestiary. The apollonian ideal inherited from the Greek statues - a sun-like body, with clear lines, overcoming the darkness of the Creation as well as his own dark side - is undermined by the dionysiac effects of motion, and it reminds us of our own animal origins.