Born in 1990 to an Ivorian father and a Guadeloupean mother, Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien grew up between Abidjan and Paris. She lives and works in Paris.
Trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Cergy, Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien has developed an ambitious, sensitive and polymorphous personal practice. Creator of new forms, explorer of materials and signs, Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien defines herself as a storyteller of poems. Like labyrinths or rebus, her works compose new topographies around the themes of femininity, identity and the body, at the crossroads of her Caribbean and West African heritage.
The artist’s works, on the border of sculpture, weaving and installation, offer us the possibility of navigating the meanders of their poetic narratives, of losing the landmarks that have been bequeathed to us in order to perhaps better redraw a path of life that is our own.
Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien’s work has been presented in several solo exhibitions, notably at the Orangerie du Jardin du Luxembourg in 2021, in an exhibition entitled ‘Weaving the Worlds’. The artist has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, such as recently at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, the MOCA Brescia in Italy, the MAC VAL and the A/D/O Design Institute in New York. In 2021, Marie-Claire Messouma is the winner of the 3rd edition of the 1% Art Market with her project ‘Ofi Titi’.
Exhibitions (selection) : L’être, l’autre et l’entre, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Cur. Daria de Beauvais, (France, 2023); Corps-mêlés, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire- 2023); Cosmogonies II - Devenir Fleur, MAMAC (Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain), Nice (France, 2022-2023); Les portes du jour, Musée Carnavalet (France, 2022) ; Féminin Plurielles, La coopérative - Musée Céres Franco (France, 2022) ; About Now #1, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire, 2021) ; Weaving the Worlds, l’Orangerie du Luxembourg, Paris (France, 2021) ; Solo show, Cité Internationale des arts de Paris (France, 2019) ; Africa Now, MOCA Brescia (Italie, 2019) ; Herstory, MAC VAL, Val-de-Marne (France, 2019) ; Softpower, Transpalette Art Center, Bourges (France, 2018)