Vivienne Maun

Vivienne Maun was born in the Loire department (France) and studied at the Beaux-Arts in Saint-Etenne. She dedicates her career to the animal world. She is inspired by animals and creates a body of work consisting of sculptures and photographs. With joy and humour, she watches and studies nature and takes inspiration and energy from it. She explores our planet, disects and translates it into her art.

Large open spaces and wilderness are still symbols of freedom that lets us guess how things might have been thousands and thousands of years ago. In these settings, Vivienne Maun captures the faces of these primates. Her photographs capture the signs of life and emotions in their eyes. We can also have a glimpse of a certain anxiety, that of a world getting closer, that has no space left for these primal species. Vivienne Maun chose these large-format portraits to show us how these fragile and touching these primates are.

In a world that is more and more hectic, Vivienne Maun likes to take the time to watch, study and understand them. Paradoxically, the photograph captures just a brief instant. Vivienne Maun plays with time, as the photographer's art consists in offering us this rare instant, when man and primate seem so close. Her animal photographies are intensely beautiful.

Vivienne Maun was awarded the silver medal at the animals festival in Montier en Der in 2012 for her work on bonobos.