THIERRY FONTAINE
8 NOVEMBER - 15 DECEMBER 2001

For its second exhibition at Bear Gardens, Bankside, f a projects is pleased to announce the first UK exhibition of the work of Thierry Fontaine.

Fontaine's photoworks combine elements of sculpture, performance, documentary and the conceptual. At first glance, the works are allself-portraits, and yet Fontaine contrives to erase his own presence and identity from the image by covering his face or body in the sand, clay or volcanic mud of the place in which the works are made. By this action, he transforms himself into a sculptural object; a conjunct of person and place.

Fontaine's themes develop from concerns of personal identity and cultural definition, and the relation of both to geographical location. Born on the island of La Réunion, a French colony off the coast of Africa, these concerns are close to Fontaine's heart. But the masking of his identity with the soil of his native island, or the clay of Paris or the jungle-like city parks of Rome, goes beyond any simplistic critique of racial stereotypes. Paradoxically, his sculptural transformations make the artist 'informel''. It is his very human identity that in the end is questioned by the process.

Fontaine was born in La Reunion in 1969, and studied at the école nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Strasbourg. He has exhibited at PS1, New York, the Villa Medici, Rome and Kunstwerke, Berlin. This is the first time his work has been shown in the UK