Water table

Quentin Garel was born in 1975. He lives and works in Paris and Normandy. He graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris in 1998 and was also a resident at Casa Velazquez.

Quentin Garel's artistic work revolves around sculpture in bronze, iron, wood or porcelain. The majority of his works represent a bestiary, sometimes realistic, sometimes skeletal. Quentin Garel is also an excellent draughtsman, which allows him to work his sculpture subjects upstream on paper. The exhibitions of his sculptures are often complemented by the presentation of preparatory work and studies.

Quentin Garel received numerous orders, notably from the City of Lille, which ordered a series of trophies for a fountain. Other cities or private groups have also called upon him (Region of Haute-Normandie, Tour Carpe Diem by Aviva at La Défense). All kinds of animals can be found each time: giraffes, hippopotamuses, turtles, frogs, crocodiles, chimpanzees, ostriches ... In parallel, Quentin Garel continues his work on the skeleton, with the production of skulls.

In 2014, Quentin Garel responded to a commission from the Mutabilis Group, a firm of landscape architects. For this commission, two new works for public space were created. One of the works is located in the Jardin de la Tour Carpe Diem at La Défense in Paris, a tower that uses environmentally friendly architecture. The artist has created a series of large plants with bronze foliage to compose a winter garden in the centre of the building.

As part of this project with Mutabilis, Quentin Garel also designed the work "Water Table" for the Place de La Paix. It is composed of 120 bronze frogs of different sizes that sit on a steel "table". The pool is partially filled with water, which gushes from some of the frogs. Some of them are worked in an astonishing detail.