Fred Martin

Fred Martin (*1969) is a French artist and sculptor; he lives and works in Lille. He graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts de Tourcoing (DNSEP, artistic expression) and gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Lille. He works in sculpture, photography, performance, drawing and printmaking (engraving). For over 25 years he has been making site-specific works, usually ephemeral, around the world (the Czech Republic, Mongolia, Turkey, Belgium and others) that enter into dialogue with the nature around them. He works exclusively with natural materials — clay, stone, vegetation — where they are available near the place he is invited to. His key subjects are the trace, the imprint, the symbol of what has been, transience, disappearance and memory. He leaves his works to the public and to the place and lets nature gradually take them back. Since 1999 he has developed the principle of “Baptêmes de terre” (Baptisms of Earth) — a ritual performance-installation based on an exchange between the audience and the artist, in which participants dip their faces into a bath of clay; a plaster cast is made from the imprint and is then shown in a monumental installation made up of all the casts.

Exhibitions include K(art)ma as part of Lille3000 (2006–2007), a solo exhibition at Lasécu in Lille (2013), Lasécu 15 ans ça se fête (2016–2017) and the Les Artpenteurs festival.

At the Art in the City festival he showed work in 2018 (the object “Ear”, straw and steel, the Golden Bridge, České Budějovice) and 2024 (the work “Samson” — a giant mask of branches of local willow and hazel by the Rabenstejn Tower, accompanied by a site-specific installation of more than 200 plaster casts of visitors’ faces made during the Earth Baptisms performance).