FABIENNE WEBER
POP'MAPS
With POP'MAPS , the artist explores a unique dimension of her visual universe, where the rigor of cartographic lines unfolds towards a formal and chromatic freedom. Passionate about maps and plans, the artist deliberately frees herself from their utilitarian function to subvert their codes. The lines transform, move, fragment, while flat areas of bright colors – sometimes fluorescent – break any pretense of accuracy.
The result is a playful and vibrant imaginary topography, which opens onto a vibrant space of escape. Behind the joyful vitality and visual energy that emanate from it, however, the series retains the possibility of carrying underlying messages, allowing a critical depth to surface.
Produced alongside other, more minimalist and sometimes monochrome series, POP'MAPS acts as a counterpoint. It represents a colorful breath of fresh air within Fabienne Weber's practice, a way of maintaining a balance between gravity and lightness, introspection and radiance.
Petit anthropomorphe, série POP'MAPS, 2025
Techniques mixtes, 25 x 25
Anthropomorphe II , POP'MAPS series, 2025
Mixed media, 50 x 50
Anthropomorphic I , POP'MAPS series, 2024
Mixed media, 50 x 50
Untitled, detail, POP'MAPS series, 2023
Mixed media,
Detail reproduced: approx. 11 x 16 cm
Dimensions of the work: 60 x 80 cm
Untitled, detail, POP'MAPS series, 2023
Mixed media,
Detail reproduced: approx. 12 x 16 cm
Dimensions of the work: 60 x 80 cm
Untitled, detail, POP'MAPS series, 2023
Mixed media,
Detail reproduced: approx. 11 x 16 cm
Dimensions of the work: 60 x 80 cm
This is not a target , POP'MAPS series, 2023
Mixed media, 50 x 50 cm
Private collection
This is not a target was created by Fabienne Weber, on the occasion of the ARCT'UP charity exhibition-sale, organized in resonance with the exhibition In the time of AIDS, works, stories and interlacing presented at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg.
Designed specifically for this event, the work offers a reflection on the paradoxical legacy of the pandemic: while it has left behind deep scars, it has also led to the emergence of countless solidarity networks across the world. The artist translates its power in the form of colorful concentric circles, a metaphor for an unfolding wave of solidarity. Inscribed in this imaginary map of human life are addresses and references to various associations that have accompanied, supported, and sometimes saved people affected by the disease.
The background, a pattern etched into the handmade paper inspired by a vintage tablecloth, evokes the memory of the "dark years" of the epidemic. It functions as a silent counterpoint: both mourning and a surface on which the possibility of collective radiance is inscribed.
This is a target , the background in progress and the vintage tablecloth​
Without words I , 2023
Mixed media, 50 x 70 cm
Without Words I and III
Originally conceived as a diptych for the offbeat NOël exhibition (La Poudrière, Sélestat), these two works combine iconographic heritage and contemporary diversion.
In Sans mots I , the Virgin and Child, inspired by Piero della Francesca*, becomes a universal maternal figure, where the fragility of the child contrasts with miniaturized architectures evoking the city of Kandor from Superman, taken up by Mike Kelley*. Cruciform motifs, reminiscent of the FERRUGINOUS series, surround the scene and blur the sacred and the ruins.
Sans mots III transposes this tension to the planetary scale: the Earth, caught in a mesh of cruciform modules, floats above a pathological electrocardiogram, a metaphor for its critical state.
*Piero della Francesca, The Holy Conversation , 1472-1474, Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera
* Mike Kelley, Kandors Full Set , 2005-2009, Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection
Without Words III , 2023
Mixed media, 50 x 70 cm