Marguerite Humeau

French artist Marguerite Humeau creates immersive worlds weaving together myth, science, history, and speculation. Many of her works reconsider traditional perspectives on organic systems and events—such as birth, anatomy and reproduction—reframing the permeable boundaries between various life forms, spaces and time.

Superior Oneness forms part of a body of work developed by Humeau in 2018, titled Birth Canal. The series draws on anthropologist Bethe Hagens’ theory that the exaggerated curves of Paleolithic Venus figurines, due to their resemblance to the forms of animal brains, were used by shamans as symbolic guides, rather than as fertility icons. Building upon this theory, Humeau creates her womb-like sculptures that perform a double role – alluding to the Venusian form, they also represent the depicted animal's brain in an inverted position. Appealing to a mythical time, the work challenges the split between “body” and “mind,” a hierarchy that has long devalued the feminine.