In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder tells the story of the Corinthian Potter’s daughter who, in the light of a candle, draws the silhouette of her beloved, projected on the wall of the bedroom, the day before her departure for a long journey.

The father imprints and dries it in the sun, just as Fanny Alloing finds consolation in the sculpture, after the disappearance of her young aunt. Very gently, like a doctor bandages the wounds of a patient, she deposits plaster straps on the body of people she knows and loves. She removes this plaster that takes the shape of the body and exposes it.

For some time, she has been coating it with clay. Once detached from its plaster matrix, the clay keeps the smallest traces of the skin. This technique of her invention materializes like magic the density and materiality of the flesh. For Fanny Alloing, plaster represents the soul, the clay emulates, the fleshly part. Sculpture becomes a consolation of the human condition, which stands between life and death.

Ileana Cornea – artension hors-série n°30

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light enters” Leonard Cohen sang.

This is what Fanny Alloing’s work illustrates. First, molded prints: face, bust. Then, her creations became larger, with body prints, made on nude models, often dancers – she is a former dancer. Split, cracked, they appear frail, fragile like molt skins: she calls them “chrysalis”.

Her artistic work is recent: “I started to present my clay molds in 2014” she explains. I used to stage molts of plaster. The imprint, as close as possible to the being that laid down, and the exit of the model of its chrysalis: this is the essence of my work”. For five years, the plaster has become a matrix, she manipulates the clay in thin layers inside, resulting in thick works of two centimeters, “thin as autumn leaves”. Each step has a symbolic value. First, the process: “Molding is a two-person experience and when people come out of the mold, it’s like a rebirth.” The materials, then: “The plaster nudes are ghostly, like an insect molt, when I stamp the clay inside the plasters, I find the density of the flesh”. Then comes the transport of the dry clay print for cooking, with the possibility of its destruction, the extreme delicacy of the molding can cause the loss. Approach and object speak of the body, of the experience of the body as knowledge of finitude and intuition of its mortality. Here is the foundation of this tragic sense of human destiny, embodied in a fleshly envelope where grace and fragility intermingle.

From the appearance of mummies wrapped in plaster strips of her beginnings, the human “chrysalis” of Fanny Alloing have reached, by the passage to terracotta, an additional force of evocation. The crude of the material that cracks, mingles with the sophistication of the enameling effects and the subtlety of the rendering of the bodies. There is acute empathy for man, who speaks of the bond, the vulnerability, and the dignity. This “fight to keep the being”, of which the ceramist speaks about the process of creation, acquires its second, deeper, metaphysical meaning.

Mikaël Faujour / La revue de la céramique et du verre

It is sculpted silence, silence filled with recollection and peace. Fanny Alloing gives it a human appearance. The face is placid, the eyes are closed, the mouth traces a fold that deforms no bitterness or anger. It happens inside the skull, in a meditation to which we are not invited, we can only imagine, according to our feeling in front of the features of the model immortalized by the clay. We are silent and for once, we leave to the cloakroom the untimely chirping of our consciences. Fanny Alloing invites us to temper the tumults of the world, to recollect. Life quickly becomes more fiery and enthusiastic if we know from time to time to give ourselves up to listen to our heartbeat. And let go for a few moments, the social mask to replace it with another, more serene.

B.L – Miroir de l’Art n°107

“The work modeled in modernity speaks of the eternity of the human condition”.

Armed with practice as a dancer, the artist proposes a ballet in frozen movement. It is up to us to grasp how these body envelopes are placed in silence. Weightless and gentle. Far from the corpse, some see sisters of mummies, brothers of recumbents. Worked in series: faces, small busts, with or without arms, crossed or not, playing on the expression, closed eyes, but also the movement, almost the resurrection, in the gestures of their positioning. The work is as striking as it is moving.

Fanny tells us that she likes Auguste Rodin, in addition to Louise Bourgeois. Apart from the unfailing connection he also maintained with dance, she cites her monumental centerpiece, The Gate of Hell, as a reference. Fanny Alloing sculpts the memory, prints the trace, shapes the memory. The work modeled in modernity speaks of the eternity of the human condition, without concern for genre or time. Universal. Africa, Asia, Europe, ancestral times, and contemporary times – without the imposture of posture or hollow concept -, everything intersects and responds. Echoing, the form resonates in the background, a simple but moving poetry.

Extracts from Patrick Le Fur’s article in Artension n°154 ( March- April 2019 )

Fanny Alloing is fascinated by the body since her childhood. Very young, she practiced the dance in an intensive way.
In her sculptures, we find the body, the bodies. She says that they are “the expression of the soul”. She makes us understand in a poetic way the moment, the life, the presence she experiences in an intense and complex creative process. She works with models, often dancers. During the long sessions of work, she also makes photos and drawings. she creates life-size chrysalises in plaster in which she finds the intention of the gesture and the detail of the flesh. They are made by material and by empty, impressive, full of humanity.
Fanny Alloing, who loves Piero Della Francesca, Michel Ange, and Rodin in particular, but also BUTO dance, the art of Japanese dance – “dance from within”, evolves in her research. For five years, she’s been working the clay. Through a new creative process, longer and even more delicate, of imprint- the stamping-, she makes sculptures with Raku technique, a great evocation force.
In her many exhibitions, Fanny Alloing combines other modes of expression – prints, photos, video. It invests the place. She staged her sculptures, occupying space in all its dimensions, and thus tells us their story, or ours.
It has already been selected at PULS’ ART and MAC PARIS. His pieces are part of the collections of the Fonds d’Art Contemporain of la Ville du Mans and FIAA.

Biography written by Elisabeth Picot Le-ROY, Gallerist

FANNY ALLOING – Marks

Here is a woman, half of her body keep her head leaning on the side, arms crossed on her chest, her fingers brushing against the shoulders. The belly button represents a «contrapposto». Another one sits like a majestic queen, her fists contracted, leaning on her chin. Here is a body lying on the side, legs folded, arms gathered, her face resting on hands.
Some busts of women, children, men leaning forward, or their forehead raised.

Fanny Alloing’s characters are made in raku. The colors of fire she gives to the clay enhance the sweetness of the marks, shapes, the subtle delicateness of the gesture, the softness of a posture.

Who are they? No one dares to disturb them or ask them. Their chilled faces, their eyes often closed, the pose of their hands, all this keep us away. They seem in harmony with their bodies, in everyday life gestures. Dancers resting before a show, pensive children,
a stroller who is si on a bench giving his face to the sunbeam, a woman who wants to sleep, a young man hiding his nudity from the glance of others, we have to guess the story.

Their bodies have gaps left by the artist on the material like widows view on cosmo, we will never know. Their flesh keep marks, the roughness of earth & clay, prints of tissue, crevices came there to tell us their past, emotions pushed away, accumulated, the pain we want to forget.

These characters, we know them. They could be us.

Elisabeth Picot-Le Roy

Fanny Alloing show her work at Malicorne-sur-Sarthe, at the museum of Faïence.
The exhibition will take place from April 12th to May 8th 2016.

from Tuesday to Sunday
10 a.m – 12.30 a.m & 2 p.m – 6 p.m

Special exhibition ceremony the April 16th at 4 p.m

A new exhibition by Fanny Alloing at the Passage Ste-Croix, Nantes – 44. It the 6th of January. Fanny will introduce the exhibition Thursday, the 8th of January at 12.30. Next, we will discuss together with a cup of coffee. Come to see it!

Individual exhibition of sculptures and videos at le Temple du Goût in the City of Nantes ( 44 ).
from March 27th to April 19th, 2014

Varnishing day: Friday, March 28th, 2014 at 6.30 p.m

Open: from Thursday to Monday, from 2 p.m till 7 p.m.

The first process “Art & Nature” organized by Carquefou at the Renaudières, elder medieval domain.

Fanny lives in Carquefou for eighteen years and exposes for the first time her work in her city.

The sculpture she introduces is half-woman, half-spider. A kind of Spidergirl.