GORILLA H.250cm

With this 250 cm monumental Gorilla, Quentin Garel amplifies the animal’s presence, giving it an almost architectural dimension. The sculpture asserts its stature through its scale, but also through an attitude that remains remarkably restrained and silent. Confronted with this figure, the viewer encounters a presence that oscillates between power, majesty and vulnerability.

As is often the case in the artist’s work, the precision of animal anatomy is combined with a free interpretation of forms and proportions. Volumes, textures and bodily details become the language of a sculpture that transcends mere naturalistic representation. Garel thus transforms the gorilla into an almost mythological figure, at once familiar and otherworldly.

At this scale, the animal seems to take possession of the space. Yet its monumentality reverses the usual relationship between human beings and the living world: it is no longer simply the viewer observing the animal, but a presence that seems, in turn, to look back at us and question us. The gorilla thus becomes an evocation of the power of the wild, but also of its vulnerability in the face of the transformations of the contemporary world.

Between realism and imagination, power and restraint, monumentality and emotion, Quentin Garel turns this sculpture into a presence that transcends the animal itself, reaching towards something deeply human.

Collection
Gorilla H. 250cm, Matmut Contemporary Art Center (CAC), Saint-Pierre-de-Varengeville, France