Language is omnipresent in Léonard-Contant’s work: clearcut and implied, present and absent, as much felt as it is seen. It is palpable even when her work wanders on the verge of comprehensibility, as she navigates the nonverbal, meticulously articulating shapes and surfaces, textures and space.
All images Courtesy by the artist
Naming and describing – ferns, gestures, mental constructs, territories, memories, hills – fosters intimacy with things, both paying tribute to them and bidding them farewell. Writing summons families of objects while simultaneously preventing some of their manifestations. Carefully chosen materials – bamboo, sand, punctuation marks, silk, fonts, insulating film – build a syntax through which meaning ferments and narratives unfold.

Maude Léonard-Contant, “No Edit Can Fail Tint”, 2020
Installation view Kunstmuseum Luzern
molding sand, ceramics, water, gasoline, 60 × 1059 × 641 cm
Photography by: Felix Gerber
Installation view Kunstmuseum Luzern
molding sand, ceramics, water, gasoline, 60 × 1059 × 641 cm
Photography by: Felix Gerber

Maude Léonard-Contant, “No Edit Can Fail Tint”, 2020
Installation view Kunstmuseum Luzern
molding sand, ceramics, water, gasoline, 60 × 1059 × 641 cm
Photography by: Felix Gerber
Installation view Kunstmuseum Luzern
molding sand, ceramics, water, gasoline, 60 × 1059 × 641 cm
Photography by: Felix Gerber

Maude Léonard-Contant, « Digression », 2016
Himalayan salt, industrial plastiline, silk pleating, steel, 60 × 300 × 8 cm
Installation view « Beyond the real”, Kunsthalle Basel
Photography by: Philipp Hänger
Himalayan salt, industrial plastiline, silk pleating, steel, 60 × 300 × 8 cm
Installation view « Beyond the real”, Kunsthalle Basel
Photography by: Philipp Hänger

Maude Léonard-Contant, “Wide Ozone Entry”, 2019
glass, steel, rubber coating, 40 × 100 × 50 cm
Photography by: Camillo Paravicini
glass, steel, rubber coating, 40 × 100 × 50 cm
Photography by: Camillo Paravicini

Maude Léonard-Contant, “I owe you a yoyo”, 2019
bent bamboo, bamboo leaves, plaster cast in clay, metal powder, insulation film, mdf, magnets
Installation view Kunsthaus Baselland
Photography by: Gina Folly
bent bamboo, bamboo leaves, plaster cast in clay, metal powder, insulation film, mdf, magnets
Installation view Kunsthaus Baselland
Photography by: Gina Folly

Maude Léonard-Contant, “No Edit Can Fail Tint”, 2020
Installation view Kunstmuseum Luzern
molding sand, ceramics, water, gasoline, 60 × 1059 × 641 cm
Photography by: Felix Gerber
Installation view Kunstmuseum Luzern
molding sand, ceramics, water, gasoline, 60 × 1059 × 641 cm
Photography by: Felix Gerber

Maude Léonard-Contant, « À tout vent », 2017
Powder coated steel, 230 × 80 × 5 cm
Installation view «Anderer | autre | other apparatus », Ausstellungsraum Klingental
Photography by: Camillo Paravicini
Powder coated steel, 230 × 80 × 5 cm
Installation view «Anderer | autre | other apparatus », Ausstellungsraum Klingental
Photography by: Camillo Paravicini

Maude Léonard-Contant, “I owe you a yoyo”, 2019
bent bamboo, bamboo leaves, plaster cast in clay, metal powder, insulation film, mdf, magnets
Installation view Kunsthaus Baselland
Photography by: Gina Folly
bent bamboo, bamboo leaves, plaster cast in clay, metal powder, insulation film, mdf, magnets
Installation view Kunsthaus Baselland
Photography by: Gina Folly