Caroline Mesquita

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Caroline Mesquita (b. 1989, Brest, France) lives and works in Marseille. Her work spans sculpture, installation and stop-motion video, primarily incorporating metals such as sheets of copper and brass, which are altered, oxidised and painted. She is best known for her metallurgic tableaux and installations, sometimes incorporating patinated brass magpies or humanoid sculptures which interact with each other playfully. Her work is as much the artist’s creation as it is autonomous: after folding, squeezing and hammering the metal by hand, then colouring it with ammonia, chloride and various acids, Mesquita relinquishes creative control to forces which oxidise and patinate. In this sense, though they are comprised of lifeless materials, her creations are imbued with their own unique personality.

Selected solo exhibitions include: CuCO & CO, HAB Galerie, Nantes, France (upcoming, 2024),Bourse du travail Centre d’art, Valence (2023), Art Club, Villa Medicis, Rome (2023), Noctambules, CAN, Centre d’art Neuchâtel, Switzerland (2022), and Humans and animals, Union Pacific, Statement Art Basel, Bâle, Switzerland (2021). Selected group exhibitions include: Art-o-rama, Union Pacific & sans titre, Marseille, France (upcoming, 2024), Be bee mon manège (with Laure Prouvost), Contemporaine de Nîmes, France (2024), Modernités cosmiques (curated by Michel Gauthier), FondaUon Vasarely, Aix-enProvence, France (2022), and La diosa verde (curated by Dorothée Dupuis), Museo de Arte de Zapopan, Guadalajara, Mexico (2021).

Installation view: Art Basel Basel, 2021 (Solo)

Le Festin, 2020, cardboard, painting, varnish, Centre d’art Contemporain Passerelle, Paris, Photos: Aurélien Mole and Thibault Henriet

Astray, 2019, Galeria Municipal do Porto, video 17 minutes 55 seconds,steel, plexiglass, plaster and wax Photo: Dinis Santos

Astray (Prologue), exhibition view at Kunsthalle Lissabon, December 2018

Astray (Prologue), Kunsthalle Lissabon, December 2018

The Ricard Prize, Paris

The Visitors, SALTS, Switzerland

Cream Sacrifice, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh

Installation View, The Ballad, Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Paris, FR, Curated by Martha Kirszenbaum

123 Soleil Victoria, 2015, steel and oxidised brass, Image courtesy of Carlier Gebauer

Installation view, Bal, SpazioA, 2015

Windsurfers, 2015, oxidised copper, fabric, 140 x 357 x 357 cm, exhibition view, Carlier Gebauer Image courtesy of Carlier Gebauer

Installation View, Camping, Union Pacific, 2015

Billiard Table, 2015, chemically treated brass, 130 x 200 x 80 cm

Le Festin, 2020, lacquered aluminium, anodies aluminium, stainless steel, copper, brass, oak. Centre d’art Contemporain Passerelle, Photos: Aurélien Mole and Thibault Henriet