Fabienne Francotte

Fabienne Francotte came to Sri Lanka late and made it her subject. Born in Brussels in 1959, she studied Arabic calligraphy at the Maison du Livre and trained in contemporary dance under Maurice Béjart, a grounding in line and movement that carries into her visual work. She first visited the island in 2013 and settled there in 2016.

Her practice is multidisciplinary, moving across painting, drawing and installation and reaching into fabric, metal and clay, and it turns on the aftermath of trauma, abuse and displacement. She has worked with survivors of the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, with deaf children and with Rohingya refugees, and has taken up questions of education, the sex trade and religious tolerance in Sri Lanka. Her exhibitions have travelled between Sri Lanka, Belgium, France, Greece and Italy; she showed My Makeup is Wrong at the Saskia Fernando Gallery in Colombo in 2024.