Jean-Marie Fiori’s speciality is depicting and interpreting animals, which he has rendered in various sculptural forms and in a variety of materials throughout his career.
His material of choice is alabaster, which he carves and paints to make animal busts ranging from tropical birds and big cats to farm animals and domestic pets. The rich texture and translucent white hue of this material forms an ideal base for these vividly painted zoological portraits.
More recently, Fiori has turned to bronze to create functional, but still highly decorative, pieces of furniture. More abstracted than his other works, he uses animal forms like that of a bull, deer, or eagle to shape a table, or the image of a cat, turtle, or duck to create a bench.
Some of Fiori’s artwork has taken inspiration from traditional Chinese culture, in which animals play an important role. For example, he completed a series of zodiac figures for the Monnaie de Paris in 2000. He brought his bronze work to China in 2010, when he was invited by the Chinese Official Committee of the World Expo, Shanghai to interpret traditional animal symbols for a public sculpture display.
