Clémence's experience in China taking the form of three visits that included two periods as artist in residence at a recently privatised former state factory at Jingdezhen, the emblematic city where Chinese porcelain was produced in such abundance, especially the "blue and white" style once so fashionable in Europe. In Paris, Clémence was already doing her best to reconcile trips to Guimet and Cernuschi with amused discoveries in the bazaars of the Chinese quarter - she makes no secret of her fondness for the cheap green and gold dragons to be found there -, noting in passing a constancy in stylistic typologies, even if changes in artistic intention, fickle tastes and economic imperatives have lowered the standards of excellence.
And yet the three Dragons that the artist conceived in China have no family connection with the local production: rather, they are an attempt to transpose in the round the rippling circumvolutions of an ancestral Chinese motif, in architecture as in painting, capable in an identical graphic synthesis of describing the movement of clouds and an undulating dragon's back, the shifting presence of spirits and the agitated flow of a stream. From elements turned then distorted, bound in clay strips that serve as joints to long, fashioned stems, "her" Chinese dragon is a vigorous sinusoid without head or tail, but rather stumps and bony limbs whose syncopated wrigglings suggest the multiple fireworks that the glossy animal could well smother (or merely delay), as though the artist were seeking to stop it from fulfilling its festive duty, namely to crackle...[…] Over the years Clémence van Lunen has thus developed an opus of "high curiosity" (to use a term sometimes applied to the diversity of collections assembled by connoisseurs with tastes as eclectic as they are refined): rare objects whose identification remains deliberately vague, intended to delight as much as to alarm, insofar as they constantly seek to unsettle us. As disturbing as they are attractive in the metaphors they conjure up, these sculptures inspire sympathy mingled with trepidation, displaying a certain filiation with the work of the American sculptor Peter Soriano, described by Tristan Trémeau as "too nice to be true". […]
Clémence van Lunen says she wants to "joyfully shake that modernism's universal certainties", preferring to develop her exploration of the plastic from creatures of her pure imagination that have their origin in intimate fantasy or fairy tale. Steering a path between educated taste and the secret wellsprings of her intact and almost childish fascination with the excessive, Clémence van Lunen acutely plots how we consume artworks while continuing to be amazed by gratuitous and vertiginous profusion, when our age has imposed the dictates of a rationalism in which pure line, functional sobriety and easy comprehensibility win out, albeit through the head, not the heart.
Frédéric Bodet
INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS
1985
- Musée de Louvain la neuve, Belgium.
1987
- Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France
1991
- Summer university for the environment, île de Berder, France
1992
- Galeria Barcena et Cia, Madrid, Spain
1993
- Hôtel de Ville, Salle Saint Jean, Paris, France
1996
- Galerie Zürcher, Paris.
- Théâtre Jacques Prévert, Aulnay-sous-Bois, France
- Yosano’s House, Tokyo, Japan
- Galerie Michel Vokaer, Brussels, Belgium
1997
- Espace Partenaire, Hamois, Belgium.
- Fondation Européenne pour la sculpture, Parc Tournay Solvay, Brussels, Belgium
1998
- Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, France
- Johson & Johnson, Paris et Rouen, France
- Musée du Sart Tilman, Liège, Belgium
2000
- Galerie le Triangle Bleu, Stavelot, Belgium
2002
- Galerie Lino Polegato, Liège, Belgium
2003
- Galerie Jacques Cerami, Charleroi, Belgium
2005
- Musée de Baugé, France
2006
- Centre d’art contemporain du Luxembourg
2007
- Galerie Arums, Paris, France
- ISELP, Brussels, Belgium
2008
- Galerie ARUMS Paris, France
2010
- Galerie POLARIS, Paris, France
2012
- Galerie Nec, Hong Kong, China
2013
- Galerie POLARIS, Paris, France
- Art Paris, Paris, France
- Galerie Michèle HAYEM IVASILEVITCH, Paris, France
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1980
- Annual participation in the Symposium international : Les Avins-en-Condroz, Belgium, until 1992.
1984
- Galerie des Beaux-arts, Paris, France
1985
- Exhibition of sculptures, Jardin d’Acclimatation, Paris, France
1987
- Musée van Buuren, Brussels, Belgium
1988
- University U.C.L, Brussels, Belgium
1990
- Sala Pallarès, Leon, Spain.
- Casa Velázquez, Madrid, Spain
1991
- Institut de France, Paris
1993
- Galerie Zürcher, Paris
1994
- Galerie Zürcher, Paris
- Atelier Cantoisel, Joigny, France
- Sculpture 1200 anniversary of the city of Kyoto, Japan
1995
- International Symposium of Sculpture-Hamois, Belgium
1996
- Maison de la Culture, Namur, Belgium
1996
- Maison de la Culture, Namur, Belgium
1998
- Arboretum des Barres, Loiret, France
- MAMAC, Liege, Belgium
1999
- Gallery der Spiegel, Köln, Germany
2000
- Musée de Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
- Atelier de la Poudrière, Seyssel, France
- Musée du Vin, Beaune, France.
2001
- Jardins secrets, Hôpital Charles Foix, Ivry-sur-Seine, France
- Maison des Arts de Bagneux, France
- Biennale d’Issy les Moulineaux, France
- Meditazione, Uno sguardo su alcuni artisti
Belgi,Varese,Italy.
- Beeldig Hofter Saksen, Beveren, Belgium.
2002
- L‘art dans les chapelles, Saint Nicodème, France
2003
- 2003 « D’ailleurs » Abbaye du Ronceray, Angers, France
2004
- Serra da Lua, Sintra, Portugal
- Céramique, Centre d’Art d'Amilly, France
2005
- Galerie Monos, Liège, Belgium.
- Cultureel centrum, Willebroek, Belgium
- Musée Royal de Mariemont, Belgium
- Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, France
- Biennale de Châteauroux, France
2006
- Galerie Arums Paris, France
- Biennale de Vallauris, France
2007
- Biennale de Châteauroux, France
2008
- Puls contemporary ceramics, Brussels, Belgium
- "White Noise" à :
- Les Anciens Abattoirs, Les Étables, Mons, Belgium
- Les Chiroux, Liège, Belgium
- ISELP, Brussels, Belgium
- Biennale Internationale de céramique Contemporaine, Musée Magnelli, musée de la céramique, Vallauris, France
- DesignArt London with la Manufacture de Sèvres
- Musei Capitolini, Rome, Italie.
2009
- Grand Palais, ArtParis, Paris, France
- Pavillon des Arts et du Design, Paris, France
- Galerie Favardin & De Verneuil, Paris, France
- SLICK 09, Galerie Polaris, Paris, France
- Musée des Beaux-arts de Nancy: Beautés monstres, France
2010
- Regards complices, Musée Languedocien, Montpellier, France
- Pavillon des Arts et du Design, Paris, France
- L'Ermitage, Saint-Pétersbourg, Russia
- Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France
2011
- Tandem, Brussels, Belgium
- Sculpture'ELLES, Boulogne-Billancourt, France.
- Le Bestiaire national de Sèvres, Château de Rambouillet, France
- Galerie Michèle HAYEM IVASILEVITCH, Paris, France
2012
- Galerie Michèle HAYEM IVASILEVITCH, Paris, France
2013
- Galerie Polaris, Paris, France
- Musée Royal de Mariemont, Belgium