Adeline de Monseignat: HOME, Ronchini Gallery

Adeline de Monseignat, artist born and raised in Monaco, is known for her surreal sculptures made of vintage fur and other curious organic materials which make audiences smile. Exploring ideas of fertility, the body and the origins of life, de Monseignat explains, ‘I investigate ways in which inanimate objects can trigger emotional responses and even hold a sense of presence in life. I attempt to inject this feeling of life into my sculptures by giving them a body, a soul and a story’.
At the Ronchini Gallery London the story of de Monseignat’s youth is being brought to life in a new large-scale installation that exactly replicates the artist’s childhood bedroom. Lying somewhere between architecture, sculpture and drawing, this fascinating installation is made from the familiar red and white striped fabrics of de Monseignat’s infancy which artfully recreates the childlike feelings of untamed imagination and creativity. Inside the structure visitors will find narrow corridors with tactile fur sculptures hidden behind glass. These ‘Creaptures’, as de Monseignat calls them, blur the line between sculpture and living creature, and make some fascinating references to the gender and surrealist discussions of Louise Bourgeois’ marble sculpture Cumul (1969) and Meret Oppenheim’s own fur teacup (1936).
In her exhibition in London last year at the Ronchini Gallery Mayfair, entitled The Uncanny, Adeline de Monseignat and Berndnaut Smilde responded to Sigmund Freud’s concept of the strangely familiar. In this latest display, de Monseignat’s surreal organic forms return; her fur sculptures placed behind glass so that our desires can only be touched with our eyes. Look out for the rising star of this contemporary sculptor.