Cultural Currents recently discovered Francoise LeClerc, a Bay Area sculptor working in ceramics and found objects.
Often depicting horses, her work evokes themes of emergence and transformation, sensitivity and trust. Expressing both boldness and vulnerability, her work can be simultaneously vigorous and quiet.
The reclaimed tool boxes and rusty parts bins (into which she mounts her sculptures) provide a tangible and metaphoric connection to the past. Together, they suggest a searching; a desire to reconstitute and understand experiences and histories that were not adequately explained.
Her collections, forms and surfaces are influenced by David Ireland, Robert Rauschenberg, Michelle Gregor, Deborah Butterfield and Stephen DeStaebler.
She lives in San Francisco and Sonoma County, California. While her work can’t be described as “ferry-centric,” some of her dreamy blue tile images evoke mysterious and isolating waterfront themes.
The artist has exhibited her work a number of Bay Area galleries, and we will be tracking her schedule closely.