Caroline Achaintre @ De La Warr Pavilion

Caroline Achaintre’s sculptures often resemble masks.  They appear in cultures throughout the world, and have the potential to take on a life of their own, conjuring ‘characters’ in the mind of the viewer. The title of this exhibition refers to the mask worn by the shape-shifting French criminal Fantômas, invented by writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre in 1911. In the 1960s, a TV adaptation of the novel was made, in which Fantômas’ face was hidden by a rigid-looking blue mask. For Achaintre, the mask is a place where fantasy and reality can exist at the same time.