Biography

Maëlle DUFOUR (1994, Belgium) is a visual artist living and working in Brussels, Belgium. She is laureate of the HISK (Higher Institute for Fine Arts) Ghent 2022-23. She graduated from ENSAV - La Cambre (Brussels) in Sculpture and did a student exchange at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, in Helsinki. Since 2014, her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Belgium and abroad. She was part of the Triennale Art Public (BE), Biennale de Mulhouse (FR), Artagon III (chaired by Hans Ulrich Obrist in Paris, FR), Biennale Artour (BE), Free Space for Arts (Helsinki, FI) and Sartene Cultural Centre (FR).

Her work is regularly showcased in art institutions such as the BPS22 (BE), Kunsthal Extra City (BE), Kanal Centre Pompidou (BE), Centre Wallonie Bruxelles de Paris (FR), Universidad de Conception (CL) and Delta (BE). In 2019, she presented two solo exhibitions in Les Brasseurs and L'ISELP (BE). In 2022, she presented a duo exhibition at the MAAC, Maison des Arts Actuel des Chartreux (BE). Maëlle Dufour was also invited as an artist in residence at RAVI (Liège, BE), MAAC (Brussels, BE), Shake Résidence Nomade (Tunis, TU), Drugstore Beograd (Belgrade, SR), Cinema Mele (Pizzo, IT), BPS22 (Charleroi, BE) and Alumi Startwell (Amsterdam, NL). In 2022, She will realize a permanent art integration project for Haren Prison.

Her work has been awarded prizes and grants, including « Prix Sofam, 2019 », « Prix de la Commission des Arts de Wallonie, 2018 », «Prix du public de la Jeune Sculpture de la FWB, 2020 », « Prix Macors, 2021 », « Le Prix d'encouragement de Sculpture, 2021 » the Institute of France , « Aide à la création, 2019 », « Un Futur pour la Culture, 2021 » and « Cocof, 2021» grants, as well as « Prix du Hainaut, 2018 », through which she published a book "Construire la ruine" in November 2021 with the CFC publisher.

A General Work Description

Maëlle Dufour creates complex systems that question progress at the heart of past, known and future eras. She explores traces of decadence as much as first signs of hope, documenting the double-edge of progress and carrying awakeners of conscience who, through gestures of protection, reflect on the meaning of human evolution. She questions origin, memory and rebirth (or its absence): destroyed by nature itself or by the men who fought for its soils, are the ruins of these dehumanizing and dehumanized societies the foundations of a renewal?

The physical confrontation between her work and the viewer is destabilizing, and the size and weight of the pieces exceeding any human scale is constantly reminding us of the vulnerability of our own existence. Through system-sculptures, in perpetual transformation during the exhibition time, she explores “an archaeology of waste”, precious sources of information, prodigious physical legacies bequeathed to those who are still to be born.

By being embodied, her imagination also makes extensive use of the resources of material reverie that Bachelard theorized, and of a metaphorical palette of unusual richness. This feeds the paradoxical charm of her work, without ever losing its thread, bitterly touching upon the roughest of present history.

Yves Randaxhe (Curator of the Belgium National Bank’s collection)

Photo credits :