Chloé Quenum

Chloé Quenum, born in 1983, lives and works in Paris. Her work relies on the manipulation of graphic, linguistic and moving elements from various cultures, that she reroutes from their original context to represent them through schematisation or formal echo. By reactivating signs and forms from history-carrying traditions—rebuses on calabashes from Dahomey, hebraic writing, wax patterns, tattoos, objects—she creates a visual language made of abstract symbols, ideograms and hybrid figures. These transformations create unexpected encounters between time, place, craft and culture, while still maintaining the memory of original meanings. Through this process of displacement, the artist opens up the possibility of new series, built like cryptic fragments, inviting the imaginary to spread in the complexity of these recomposed forms. In 2024, Chloé Quenum represented Benin at the 60th Venice Biennale.