GUERIN PROJECTS was created by Marie-Claudine Llamas (b.1994). Marie-Claudine is
a French, London based independent curator. She is rapidly making a name for herself as
a star curator of the next generation and prominent figure on the contemporary art scene,
with acclaimed exhibitions over the past decade which have included”The Power of She”
at Bowman Sculpture. MC recently presented a sell-out exhibition of James D. Kelly’s
photography at Photo London, which generated much praise in the media including The
Times, The Guardian and Forbes. She has taken part in numerous talks, including “Boom
for Real, the Late Teenage Years of Jean Michel Basquiat” at Hauser and Wirth Somerset.
MC is growing to become an accomplished part of the burgeoning London Art landscape.

Marie-Claudine’s approach to curation is a Romantic one, interlaced with the Art Historical
Era. This time was defined by a profound appreciation for the beauties of nature, a general
exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect. This moment in art
history was deeply introspective and showed a heightened examination of human
personality, its moods and mental dexterity. In harmony with these principles, beauty is
found in the interpretation of the “Now” and in the cultivation of emotions, it is therefore
found not only in the grand, but in the everyday.

Charles Baudelaire; “On the Heroism of Modern Life,” from Salon of 1846: “All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only on
abstraction skimmed from the general surface of different beauties. The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty.” Ants build nests underground and are well organized.

GUERIN PROJECTS dawned in 2022, its name is eponymous of MC’s late mother Hélène
Guérin. It has a nurturing ethos: MC started her career as an artist, studying at Les Ateliers
des Arts Décoratifs (Écoles du Louvre) in Paris, the Charles Cecil Studios in Florence and
City of London Art School in London, after which she went on to complete a graduate
Diploma at the Royal College of Art on a Scholarship. In MC’s words:

“It was whilst I was at City Guilds that I started curating shows with my fellow students and
tutors’ works, so I fell into it very organically. My background is in fine art, which means
that I’m aware of the process artists go through when making work. I love having a practice
based education, it feeds directly into my process as a curator. When planning an
exhibition, I am deeply involved in the development of the works, which means I really
know the pieces which l’m hanging. Each exhibition I curate is the result of months,
sometimes years of conversations and critical work with the artist. It’s my favourite part of
the job. It’s so important to love the work and the person behind the works, it means that
once the pieces are up on the wall of the booth/gallery I can truly describe with enthusiasm
and awareness what the images are about. I’ll only take part in a fair or organise an
exhibition if I have the perfect fit for it, it’s not about just doing projects, it’s about how
tailored a situation can be for an artist, the work needs to be valued and in the right
context, to give it the targeted attention it deserves!”