Fia Cielen

My work consists of drawings, installations and sculptures. Since I graduated from the HISK, I have been exhibiting my work nationally and internationally.
In my oeuvre one can detect a feeling for the absurd setting but often countered by an uncanny, almost sinister atmosphere. My work can be regarded as a wunderkammer, a hybrid oeuvre that raises questions about the artificiality of nature, transgression and metamorphosis. An important aspect of my work is "˜the marvellous' as described by art historian Hal Foster: "˜A state at once otherwordly, secular and psychic'. I seek to achieve a sort of re-enchantment of a disenchanted world.
My latest drawings are inspired by masks and the monstrous. The drawings depict portraits in metamorphosis, one can see a vague resemblance of a human indentity transforming into an unrecognizable state or a more animalistic nature. These monsters exceed boundaries, reconfigure forms and are always horrible and wonderful at the same time. They exist as a state of becoming, rather than as a false marker of fixity. In this way these works use this monstrous form as both image and process. The representation of monsters for the articulation of identities outside the normative.
In 2010 I started wor...

CV Fia Cielen
Lives and works in Antwerp

Master diploma in Visual Arts, 3D-Multimedia, KASK, 2006.
Laureate of HISK postgraduate program, 2008.