Quentin Clemence

Quentin Clemence is an artist whose practice is rooted in performance and has evolved into a distinctly sculptural visual language. After studying performance art at Goldsmiths College in London, his life became inextricably linked to the stage and the broader art world. He joined a circus as a puppeteer, lived and worked in Ireland and Southern Europe, and finally settled in Catalonia. There, he has since worked and performed both locally and internationally, together with his partner, performance artist Empara Rosselló.

His early installations—often hybrid and theatrical in nature—were presented at leading institutions such as La Caixa Forum and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), as well as at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf. He received the prestigious FAD Prize for his contribution to Carlos Santos' opera Lucrecia de Borgia, which opened the Teatre Lliure in Barcelona.

In 2002, faced with growing demand for his work, Clemence shifted his focus to ceramic and bronze sculptures. Although the medium changed, the performative core remained: his sculptures resemble characters, fragile protagonists in a still scene. They bear traces of movement and narrative, as if they could spring to life at any moment.

Clemence's sculptures balance between humor and melancholy, between archaic monumentality and human vulnerability. His work has been offered numerous times at Sotheby's, including in auctions dedicated to 20th-century British artists, and is held in prominent private collections in London, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, and Salzburg.

By combining performance, installation, and sculpture into a single, coherent artistic vision, Quentin Clemence has built an oeuvre that is both physical and narrative—tangible in material, yet rooted in theatrical imagination.