z a n a f o n t a n n a z

about-english

I am a painter and engraver, born in 1976.

After studying dramatic arts at the Théâtre National de Bretagne, I worked for several years as an actress before turning to drawing and painting. In 2009, I aquired intaglio techniques at Raymond Meyer's Studio.

Today, I live and work in Berlin.

Some of my works use untypical media such as wood or plastic, but my main material is paper. I have a fondness for this medium, which is fragile and yet strong at the same time. Whether it is full of paint and sand, marked by a drypoint or barely touched by the printing press as with my monotypes, paper allows me to express dualities and paradoxes in a concrete and artisanal way. I like to mistreat it and push it to its limits, as with my mixed media, where I work on old prints, recycling them by painting, tearing, gluing and re-gluing several times. By working with (or against) it, the medium itself is expressed, and through it, doubt, strength, endurance also, its incredible longevity at the same time as its perishable character.

I don't follow the beaten path, rather my own impulses. The various stages of my training – artistic – are driven by my search for answers – not unambiguous – to the issues I deal with. This is what brings my works which use different techniques together – etchings, paintings, drawings, small and very large formats. The questions are not so much those I raise, but those which come before the need to create ways of expressing them.

Solo Exhibitions

2019 « Strata » paintings, etchings, monotypes, Skalit22er, Berlin.

2016 « La guérison est éphémère ne t'inquiète pas »(Don't worry Healing is temporary) paintings, etchings, Projektraum Ventilator, Berlin /Les Ateliers Artelle, Paris.

2015 « Accrochage » paintings, etchings, IchOrya, Berlin.

2012 « mulT*itude » paintings, etchings, Morgenrot, Berlin.

2011 « Shame, Shame, Shame on you! » paintings, SilverFuture, Berlin.

2009 « Singulier Pluriel-le-s » drawings, etchings, Galerie de la Comédie, Genève.

Collectives exhibitions, various collaborations

2019 « schwarze Kunst - auch bunt » etching, Druckwerkstatt des bbk, Bethanien, Berlin.

2018 « Ventilator: vom Winde verweht » etching, Projektraum Ventilator, Berlin. « Aufgekratzt & Tiefgedruckt 2 » etching, Druckwerkstatt des bbk, Bethanien, Berlin. « Ljiljanas Atelier » drawings, etchings, Charivari Biennale, Berlin.

2017 « SPWS N°2 » etchings, Projektraum Ventilator, Berlin. « Rundgang der Spinnerei » C.Germès Open Studio, etchings, Leipzig.

2016 « Super Power Woman Show N°1 » etching, Projektraum Ventilator, Berlin.

2014 « Variation baroque » Monumental Painting for La Maison Baroque, Studio Disorder, Curator/ Choreographer: Rodrigo Garcia Alvès, SODA – Uferstudios, Berlin. « Autour de la presse » Atelier Raymond Meyer, etchings, Musée-Galerie E.Vallet, Vercorin. « What is Queer today is not Queer tomorrow » etchings, nGbK, Berlin.

2013 « Gruppenausstellung Trans*Inter*Queerer Künstler_innen » drawings, TrIQ, Berlin.

2012 « Uprising » Monumental Painting for Le Peuple d'Icare, Conception/ Direction: Dan Artus, Dijon.

2011 « Nous sommes restéEs marquéEs et nous n’aurons plus jamais de rémission » Monumental Painting for La Zone, Conception/ Direction: Dan Artus, Lausanne.

2010 « Accessoires » drawings for the Book Mode de Vie – Une Bibliothèque, Edition Art&Fiction, Galerie Halle Nord, Genève. « Ikarus » Monumental Painting for Le Peuple d'Icare, Conception/ Direction: Dan Artus, Paris. « Au bord du lac », Book of etchings, text Robert Walser, Editions Raymond Meyer, Lutry. « Encres & Papiers » etchings, Biennale de l'Estampe de Saint-Mandé, Paris.