Quentin Garel French, b. 1975

Quentin Garel is an internationally acclaimed French sculptor and draughtsman, best known for his striking bronze animal sculptures that evoke the texture and presence of wood. Each work begins as an intricate charcoal drawing, which he then translates into a carved wooden form before casting it in bronze. The result is a luminous, tactile surface that balances realism with transformation. His animal figures often take on the form of masks, distilling the essence of the creature rather than depicting it in full, and inviting a more symbolic, almost totemic reading.

 

Following the widely acclaimed exhibition The Bone Magician at the National Museum of Natural History in 2016, and its presentation at the Palazzo Tiepolo Passi during the Venice Biennale in 2017, Garel was honoured with major retrospectives at the Matmut Contemporary Art Center in 2019 and the Domaine de Chamarande in 2020.

 

Garel graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1998 and was awarded a scholarship to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, followed by a two-year residency at the Casa de Velázquez. He has completed numerous public commissions, including a series of bronze animal busts for the public gardens in Lille and another installed in the garden of the Tour Carpe Diem in Paris. His work is held in major collections such as the Regional Centre of Knowledge in Rouen and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Verona, and has also been presented in the Galleries of Comparative Anatomy and Palaeontology. Among his distinctions are the Drawing Prize from the Academy of Fine Arts, Paris (2003) and the Sculpture Award from Salon de Mai, Paris (2004), among others.