Fanny Mesnard is a visual artist who settled in Quebec after university studies in France. Starting with drawing, she developed an installation, video and, above all, sculptural practice, mastering the complex art of ceramics. Over the past fifteen years, she has held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Canada and Europe. For Manif d’art 9 (Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, 2019) and at the Maison des arts de Laval (2021), she produced two large-scale immersive installations. Since 2018, she has also been working in public art, both solo and as part of the Demers-Mesnard duo.

Approach and works on display

Les refuges (2019-2020)

Genius loci, the spirit of the place… this is what characterizes the worlds and characters that Fanny Mesnard brings out of the earth and from which she draws her ceramics. In the Roman world, every place was protected by a genius to be admired or feared. These hybrid ceramics are a blend of animal and vegetable, and we don’t know whether to fear or laugh at them. In each refuge, we encounter wolves, frogs, monkeys, monsters and genies, depending on our imagination. Fanny Mesnard lends us this fantastical world for the duration of the exhibition, nourishing a new mythology for these sites, which are certainly marked by Montreal’s industrial history, but paradoxically have only recently risen from the earth. Flowers gathered in the surrounding area bear witness to the transition of the site, and display their charms in Fanny Mesnard’s precious, slightly magical glazed ceramics. It’s the beginning of a story that takes place here.

Works by the artist